The Choices We are Really Making

It is fun to see movie stars on our streets, I can't deny that. But it is so important to know what we are choosing to do without in order to lure the film industry here. In light of the constant claxon of "worst budget in years" and "budget crisis," can we justify giving tax breaks to the film industry?

Just one current casualty is public health. I'm not talking about Health Care Reform which is about insurance and having access to acute or chronic health care, I'm talking about the unique role of government in tracking, monitoring and controlling infectious diseases (among other things). 

The private sector won't do this; hospitals participate, but they don't have the capacity for a state-wide (or nation-wide) surveillance and response team. This unique public-sector service is also uniquely beneficial for every person in the Commonwealth. We all eat, breath and drink here, which means our public health officials are daily protecting us.

Sadly, our State Laboratory (a key public structure which coordinates these health and safety measures), is woefully under-funded and will need to cut at least $3 million dollars from its already bare-bones staff and programs. What do you think?

Should they cut the milk safety program? How about the mosquito-testing program (for EEE and West Nile, among other things)? How about no more TB control, which is airborne and literally everywhere? What about rabies control? Does a cut in our immunization program appeal? Never catching up on our backlog of illegal-drug testing, which means more drug dealers go without prosecution? Or maybe we can be more judicious about our tax cuts...

Fortunately, it is a fairly straightforward thing to keep/restore this health and safety net because we have some of the best experts in the nation working for us. We just need to make sure they get to stay and do their jobs.

In that case you can call your State Senator and State Representative to ask them to choose more wisely on your behalf: 617-722-2000.