Economy Dominates Luncheon With Legislators

FALMOUTH- State Senate President Therese Murray and other local and state legislators delivered some bad economic news at the Falmouth Chamber of Commerce’s annual legislative luncheon at the Casino in Falmouth Heights on Friday.
Senator Murray (D-Plymouth) told her fellow political panelists and assembled Falmouth citizens that the next line of state budget cuts could affect local aid.
Revenues are down across the board, but Senator Murray said budgets could get a boost at the end of the year when the capital gains taxes kick in. The number of people who sold stock this summer could be paying significant amounts of capital gains taxes, and that could help save some local programs, Senator Murray said. 
More bad news came when Senator Murray described the challenges of the state healthcare system. Although Senator Murray said that system is working well, she said costs are growing at double-digit rates.
One problem with the healthcare system is that the state underestimated how many uninsured people were going to sign up for MassHealth, the state-funded healthcare system.
Senator Murray said 350,000 people had signed up for MassHealth, more than twice the 150,000 the state had expected and there is a huge shortage of primary care providers.
Some of the ways the state plans to cut healthcare costs are by creating mini-clinics in pharmacies in order to reduce waits for primary care doctors, and offering free tuition to doctors who would become primary care providers.
State Representative Matthew C. Patrick (D-Falmouth), one of the other members of the legislative panel, said, “The state program is doing a heck of a lot of good.” He talked about how people are proud of having healthcare and questioned why the United States pays the most per capita for healthcare in the world. He told the audience that in Europe doctors are paid by the quality of the care they provide, rather than the quantity.
Sheila R. Lyons of Wellfleet, recently elected Barnstable County Commisioner, talked about the importance of approaching the area’s problems from a regional viewpoint. “We are on this peninsula together and the town lines are manmade lines,” she said.
Focusing on budget cuts, Barnstable County Sheriff James M. Cummings told the luncheon attendees that the budget for a sex offender monitoring program had already been cut in half.
Falmouth Town Manager Robert L. Whritenour Jr. talked about financing a new wastewater plant. Twenty years ago, he said, municipal wastewater systems were financed 75 percent by federal aid and 15 percent state money, with the rest coming from local budgets. Now, a new wastewater treatment facility would have to be funded entirely by local money from taxpayers.
The luncheon concluded with a brief question-and-answer session.