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The key selling point of the proposed Great Brook Valley health clinic downtown is that it will provide coverage to a "medically underserved" area, many of whose residents do not have health insurance. The argument that Great Brook Valley, a well known social service provider in Worcester but little known here, appears to be making is that people with no insurance will not attract private medical offices, so only a charitable organization can serve them. The fact that this nonprofit facility will not only not pay taxes to the town but discourage competition that would was unfortunate but of no real concern to Great Brook Valley.
Now it appears the clinic would not only be bad for Framingham, but unnecessary as well.
Great Brook Valley's argument may have been true at one time, but it no longer applies. Before this charitable clinic is even scheduled to open, everyone in the state should have health insurance. (See excerpt from the Globe's story on Romney's proposal in his State of the State address below.)
The beauty of this proposal is that it will encourage the growth of private, tax paying, medical facilities in precisely those areas that are currently medically underserved, because competition, like nature, abhors a vacuum. By now we have all read that a private facility of the same size as the Great Brook Valley clinic would pay the town $70,000 per year in taxes, which could be used to hire an additional police officer or alleviate bus fees for schoolchildren.
Great Brook Valley's argument that they are renovating a blighted property, which a private group might not, can be countered through tax incentives. The town could offer a 10-year, $25,000 per year tax break to a private medical facility on the same property -- that's a quarter of a million dollars, about what Great Brook valley was planning to spend-- in exchange for renovating the blighted property. The private company would benefit and so would the town, both because the property would be renovated, aiding downtown revitalization, and because the town would still receive enough in taxes per year to pay for the repairs to the heating system at town hall. Not only that, but the private facility, because it would be designed to serve Framingham, not a 25-town area like the Great Brook Valley clinic, would not create the kind of traffic and parking problems that the proposed clinic will.
It's a win-win -- as long as there are people with health insurance to make the private facility profitable. Enter the state.
In his state of the state address, Gov. Romney laid out his plan to make sure that all Massachusetts citizens have health insurance. Since both houses of the legislature are also working towards this goal, it is a virtual certainty that the goal of insuring every Massachusetts citizen will be met this year.
Here is an excerpt from the article in the Globe:
Romney proposes $200m for health
Would set aside funds to help cover uninsured
By Scott S. Greenberger and Scott Helman
The Boston Globe, January 19, 2006Describing Massachusetts as "resilient, robust, and strong," Governor Mitt Romney used his final State of the State address last night to propose setting aside $200 million to help pay for a sweeping healthcare plan, saying the money should assuage legislators' fears about the cost of covering everybody.
"Health insurance for all our citizens does not require new taxes," Romney said. "Some of you have your doubts about that. I know that the uncertainty could stall our progress or even end it. The speaker, Senate president, and I have agreed that we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Our citizens are counting on us. Federal funding depends on us. Let's not allow perfection to become the enemy of progress."
Until last night, Romney had argued that no new state money would be necessary to extend coverage to the state's uninsured. Massachusetts currently spends more than $1 billion a year on medical care for the uninsured through its "uncompensated care pool," and he has argued that simply redirecting that money would pay for his plan. The House and Senate both have approved their own healthcare measures, but talks between the two bodies have bogged down over the House's proposed payroll tax, which Romney opposes.
Private medical facilities, unlike charitable ones, will be answerable to the local community, not the federal government (which would fund the Great Brook Valley clinic). Private medical facilities pay taxes, helping the town, and are more likely to hire local citizens than a clinic run out of Worcester and serving a 25-town region. And because the private facility would be smaller, of course, it would benefit the town by not adding to the traffic and parking problems downtown.
We hope that the town will see the long term advantage, to both the town's citizens and finances, of denying the special permits required for Great Brook Valley to build their clinic here and instead take the more difficult, but more rewarding, route of attracting a private, tax paying medical facility here with the lure of tax incentives and a ready made market of medically underserved residents with health insurance.
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