The Freedom Bulletin

This is sad news – Wonderland Greyhound Park, the 75-year-old racetrack in Revere, closed today. The voters of Massachusetts chose to ban greyhound racing in a 2008 ballot initiative, and Governor Deval Patrick and the state legislature recently failed to come to an agreement to allow casinos or slot machines at racetracks, something that Wonderland was hoping for.

In addition to 100 employees losing their jobs, Massachusetts is also deprived of a landmark that, although not the most upscale place to say the least, is a unique part of our state’s culture and character. The voters made the wrong decision to ban greyhound racing, which is not in itself harmful to dogs. The governor and the legislature failed to agree on a bill authorizing casinos or racetrack slots, which is kind of pathetic since they are both in favor of allowing some number of casinos.

The loss of Wonderland leaves Massachusetts a little bit worse off, and it is the decisions of our voters, governor, and legislature that caused this. Massachusetts needs some new leaders (and a change in the anti-liberty attitudes of many voters) who will make the state a better place instead of a worse one.

Photo courtesy of Zchangu @ Wikipedia, CCASA 2.5

The Massachusetts Bureau of Health Care Safety and Quality recently approved a system that increases doctors’ ability to monitor people’s prescription history. Previously, the Department of Public Health monitored a database tracking prescriptions for only a few drugs, but doctors did not have the ability to view the database. Now, even more medications are included in the database, pharmacists are required to update it, and doctors have full access to it.

Needless to say, paternalistic and anti-liberty people fully support this attempt to fight “doctor shopping” – going to more than one doctor to get prescriptions for the same drug. But I see it as the government stamping out the last tiny, pathetic remnants of freedom that are left in the American medical system.

It is bad enough that people are required by law to have a doctor’s permission to have medications. To give doctors access to people’s prescription history, making it even harder to obtain medications, just violates people’s rights even more. As I recently explained, people have the right to control what happens to their own bodies. Doctors have no right to deny people medications that they want and are willing to pay for, and they have no right to know anything about our medical history unless we want to tell it to them.

Here’s a radical idea: Why not repeal the Durham-Humphrey Amendment and the paternalistic medical culture that goes with it? Why not have all medications available in stores and allow people (with or without a doctor’s advice) to decide for themselves what to purchase? Then we wouldn’t have to worry about “doctor shopping.” People would have no need to lie to doctors or beg for their permission for the medications that they want. We could independently and autonomously make our own decisions and would have the final say over what happens to our bodies.

People have the right to do anything, as long as it does not violate the rights of others. The fact that an action is risky or unhealthy does not change this. The new prescription monitoring system might improve people’s health, but more importantly, it decreases our liberty.

It just keeps getting better! Not only is Virginia suing against the federal requirement to have health insurance, but a man named Michael Merlina is suing the Massachusetts Health Connector Authority, the entity in charge of implementing the state’s health insurance mandate. He was fined $2000 for failing to have insurance, and the Connector denied his appeal.

It’s awesome that someone is challenging the state’s individual mandate in the court system, but even better that three of out the four gubernatorial candidates (at least to some extent) support Merlina and criticize the individual mandate.

Republican Charlie Baker isn’t explicitly anti-mandate, but he makes a good point about Massachusetts’s long list of benefits that all insurance plans must cover:

“The whole plan was for people to have more affordable options, and Gov. Patrick eliminated them. Michael Merlina is arguing that the price of health insurance has become unaffordable, and he’s right.”

Said Independent Tim Cahill (I’m pleasantly surprised to learn that he’s against the mandate):

“He’s not asking for a handout – he just wants to be left alone. I feel for him. I hope he wins, and throws the whole insurance mandate up in the air.”

And Green-Rainbow candidate Jill Stein is surprisingly anti-mandate as well:

“All health-care nonreform did was created a windfall for insurance and pharmaceutical companies that are in bed with Beacon Hill.”

Health-care nonreform…what a great name! I might have to start using it.

A couple of years ago, the individual mandate was considered a moderate measure, supported by Democrats and Republicans alike and only opposed by the “far right.” In the early stages of the federal health-care nonreform debate, the individual mandate was considered a given and was rarely mentioned. All of the debate focused on the public option, Medicare cuts, abortion funding, and other things that, although important, are not as important as the mandate from a pro-liberty point of view. Now almost every time federal health-care nonreform is mentioned in the news, the individual mandate is mentioned, and usually called unpopular and/or controversial. How awesome that three out of four gubernatorial candidates in Massachusetts, where the individual mandate was first enacted in 2006, disapprove of the mandate to some extent. People are finally realizing what freedom truly is and how severely the individual mandate violates it.

Senator John Kerry (D-MA) is facing a lot of flak for docking his and his wife’s yacht “Isabel” in Rhode Island, where he doesn’t have to pay taxes on it. I actually don’t think there is anything wrong with Kerry’s decision (and the author of this letter in the Globe agrees with me!).

Kerry is a typical Democrat who has voted for tax increases on the national level several times, so his desire to avoid the 6.75% Massachusetts sales tax does come off as inconsistent…but maybe Kerry is starting to realize how excessive taxes are in Massachusetts. I don’t agree with Kerry’s opinions about taxes if his votes are any indication, but I agree with his decision to try to avoid the sales tax (if that was, indeed, the reason behind keeping the boat in Rhode Island). When a tax is unjust, people have the right to do anything they can to avoid it.

Unfortunately, Kerry just said that he will pay the roughly $500,000 in state and local taxes that he would have owed had he kept the yacht in Massachusetts. I wish he had stuck to his guns in order to make a statement against the recent sales tax hike. Wouldn’t it be awesome if our Democratic senior senator took a stand against the ever-growing, ever-spending government of Taxachusetts?

Edit: As Jeff Jacoby points out, Kerry isn’t even doing anything illegal. He is just living his life in the way that makes the most financial sense, given the tax laws.

I apologize for the dearth of new posts in the past few weeks. I just wanted to alert you, if you live in Massachusetts, to gubernatorial candidate Charlie Baker’s cool new campaign – the “Had Enough” tour.

Ad is from Baker For Gov’s Youtube account. Also be sure to follow the new tour on Twitter if you have an account, @MaHadEnough.

Go Charlie! Let’s vote out the Democrats and make this a two-party state again.