Crying won't help you

Crying won’t help you, praying won’t do you no good
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to go

That’s how I feel about the piece Amy Lischko and I had in the Globe today on the health care reform of 2006 and how it’s failed to do much of anything to respond to small business needs. Key paras:

First, the Connector focused all its energy on providing nearly free products to the indigent. In contrast, the Connector’s board seemed almost uninterested in market-rate products for small business employees…

The Connector took three years to make information about provider networks and participating primary care providers for small businesses available on its website. It took over two years to launch a small employer pilot program; in more than a year it attracted just 65 businesses and has now been replaced by a new program that offers only seven plans.

Implementation also fell short when the Connector chose to build a top-down bureaucracy rather than leverage the broker and private market community. The quasi-governmental Connector has a $40 million annual budget and 45 employees earning annual salaries that average $100,000. Its board is heavily weighted toward government officials and unions.

Yes, of course, the title of this blog refers to the unstoppable, rising tide of health care costs that is flooding small businesses. But I am also, ahem, seeking redemption for the closing line in the piece, where there is a huge no-no misspelling.

And unless Massachusetts does the hard work of getting costs under control, Patrick could be remembered as the guy who tried to prop up the levy as the floodwaters surged in.

I understand this could be passed off as a double-entendre, but it was just bad editing on my part. In recognition of my failing and to correct my errant ways, this morning I have subjected myself, and the entire Pioneer staff, to a deluge of Zep.