Mental Healthcare

This is a blog to discuss the views of the now 10 contenders to fill Nikki Tsongas’ seat representing the Massachusetts 3rd District. We have already discussed education policy, minimum wage, and healthcare. This week we will be discussing mental health. As stated previously, any candidate who does not have a website will not be discussed further in this blog, because I simply don’t have time for someone who isn’t serious when there are so many other serious candidates.

I was actually rather distressed by the lack of discussion of this important issue. All of the candidates talk about the Opioid epidemic, but no one talked about how to remove marijuana from the list of illegal drugs at the federal level to protect the Massachusetts businesses which, at the moment, are restricted to working entirely with cash because national banks are liable if they serve Massachusetts' marijuana dispensaries.

Alexandra Chandler wants to deal with the opioid epidemic at multiple levels, from the doctors who prescribe it to the street dealers who sell it illicitly. She has detailed plans on how she will do so. She also mentions wanting to help children with disabilities receive the treatment they need.

Barbara L'Italien focuses on increased mental health services for children with disabilities. She also says that we need to hold Big Pharma accountable for the opioid crisis.

Juana Matias wants to improve mental health services both in schools and in the juvenile justice system.

"Beej" Das wants to increase the availability of mental health beds, and sees this as key to solving challenges related to the opioid crisis and to other mental health crises.

Rufus Gifford says that we need to spend more money on the opioid crisis until there are no more overdoses.

Lori Trahan wants to destigmatize treatment programs for the opioid epidemic.

Dan Koh wants to increase spending on treatment and recovery programs for the opioid crisis.

Bopha Malone recognizes that addiction is a disease and should be treated as one.

Jeff Ballinger doesn't mention mental health at all.

Because my time is at a premium right now, and I make no money off of this blog, I will be cutting my reporting down to my top five candidates starting next week. The next edition of this blog, focusing on immigration, will only look at Rufus Gifford, Barbara L'Italien, Juana Matias, "Beej" Das, and Alexandra Chandler. The other candidates have not impressed me thus far in this race.

Return Post

I haven't updated this blog in two months, due mostly to medical issues. It is my hope that I will be able to resume writing consistently now that I am feeling mostly better. This post is mostly just me catching up on everything that's happened in two months. I plan to begin writing the post on mental healthcare today, and it should arrive next week.

Since my last update, many candidates have dropped out of the race, listed below:

• Patrick Littlefield
• Steve Kerrigan
• Nadeem Mazen
• Terry Ryan
• Keith St. John

Also, in that time, a ballot initiative received enough signatures that it will be down-ballot from whoever wins this race, which asks whether we want to discriminate against trans* people. This is notable because one of the candidates *is* trans, and if she wins, then she will share a ballot with a question of whether or not she should be allowed to pee in a public rest room. This is, clearly, deeply disturbing.

Healthcare Policy

Race to Fill Nikki Tsongas' Seat in the House of Representatives · Post Healthcare Policy Posting as Stuart

This is a blog to discuss the views of the now 12 contenders to fill Nikki Tsongas’ seat representing the Massachusetts 3rd District. We have already discussed education policy and minimum wage. This week we will be discussing healthcare. As stated previously, any candidate who does not have a website will not be discussed further in this blog, because I simply don’t have time for someone who isn’t serious when there are 11 other serious candidates.

Here is a table showing each candidate’s views on the most broken parts of our healthcare system. Again, I will color-code answers in terms of more liberal being bluer, more moderate being redder, and more confused being grayer. Because I am analyzing the Democratic candidates, I will be putting the more liberal candidates on each issue at the top, and the more conservative candidates at the bottom.

Lori Trahan’s entry in the table is bolded because you should read her views straight from her website. She appears to have a solid understanding of healthcare policy, but the format of this blog is ineffective at covering such detail.

Name	Single Payer	The VA	ObamaCare	Transparency
L’Italien	Yes	Not mentioned	Worked on the Massachusetts one which it was based on.	Health insurers need to provide better information
St. John	Yes, slowly	Improve access and wait times	Not far enough, fix it	Lack causes inflation
Trahan	Not Mentioned	Not mentioned	Strengthen and defend	Improve (very detailed)
Chandler	Yes	Not Mentioned.	Public Option until Single Payer	Supports creation of a universal medical records system
Gifford	Yes, but Massachusetts needs to do it first.	Not mentioned	Helped pass it	Increase Accountability
Malone	Not mentioned	Not mentioned	Protect, fix, and strengthen	Not mentioned
Matias	Yes	Not mentioned	Not mentioned	Not mentioned
Koh	Sure	Fix	Strengthen and add public option	Not mentioned
Littlefield	Yes	Not mentioned	Not mentioned	Not mentioned
Das	Yes	Fold into the new single-payer	Good first step, too expensive for employers	Not Mentioned

Barbara L’Italien has fought hard on this issue in the Massachusetts legislature, earning her the Mass-Care advocacy group endorsement. She believes strongly that people with pre-existing conditions need to be protected, that CHIP needs to be fully funded, and that patients should be allowed to try to treatment which has the highest likelihood of success before needing to try less expensive treatments.

Keith St. John spoke to me after the rally on Monday, and impressed me with his desire to fix the healthcare system. He wants us to move in the direction of single payer, but thinks that we need to do so slowly and carefully. He pointed out that ObamaCare needs to be fixed in order to work as it was intended.

Lori Trahan has the most specific and detailed information on bringing down healthcare costs of any candidate. She talks about specific changes which can be made to laws regarding medical costs, record-keeping, and informed consent.

Alexandra Chandler says that she would vote for the Sanders-Conyers healthcare bill in Congress, with an amendment to make it phase in over time. This bill allows Medicare to cover any resident of the United States, and the bill’s language claims that this can be paid for by current federal healthcare spending. Chandler also says that the bill must be amended to include some protections currently included in Medicaid, but not in Medicare.

I spoke with Rufus Gifford at the rally on Monday, and he pointed out that he had been a part of the team who helped President Obama pass ObamaCare. He has seen how effective single payer is in other countries, including during his time as the US ambassador to Denmark, but he recognizes that it will be hard to get single-payer passed federally before a few states show that it can be done well.

Bopha Malone says that we should "protect, fix, and strengthen" ObamaCare.

Juana Matias supports single-payer healthcare.

Dan Koh believes in the Affordable care act, and wants to strengthen, defend, and expand it. He believes that it should include a public option, where Americans could buy into something like Medicare.

Patrick Littlefield only mentioned making higher ed more affordable on his website.

Abhijit "Beej" Das wants a system similar to what you would find in England, where you get basic health insurance just by being an American, but if you want coverage for more than that, you need to pay for private insurance as well.

Next week, the topic will be Mental Health, including drug policy.

The following candidates do not talk about specific education policies on their websites.
• Jeff Ballinger

Special Mini-Update: Opposing Trump's Agenda

Today, there was a rally in Concord, Ma by a neo-nazi group trying to promote hate speech. Almost every candidate said that they would be there, but only two actually showed up in the pouring rain.

Rufus Gifford

Rufus Gifford was the first candidate to arrive. He was happy to talk to his constituents, and recognized me specifically. He talked about his time spent working with Barack Obama for his entire presidency, and the things he learned from that time.

While he was talking, I turned around to respond to something a park ranger had said about what the counter-protesters needed to do in order to stay safe, and when I turned back he was gone.

Keith St. John

Keith St. John showed up a few minutes after Mr. Gifford left. I noticed him chanting along before I got a chance to talk to him. He invited me to sit down for tea and to talk about the race later, rather than trying to talk about it while we should be drowning out the voices of the neo-nazis on the hill. He pointed out that his website is so sparse because he refuses to ask anyone for money until he has all the signatures he needs, and that means that he doesn't have money to pay a website person yet.

He didn't take a vuvuzela, but he chanted along, and he stayed for over an hour. He was still there when I left, after most of the neo-nazis had abandoned the field.

A message to the other candidates

If you didn't show up, especially if you said you would, then you let us down. You were part of the reason that the neo-nazis outnumbered us for the first half hour. I will remember well the two candidates who DID show up as I continue to write this blog.

Update: Alexandra Chandler reached out to explain that because her wife was busy at 3, she had to back out from attending the rally when the time was changed because she would have had their two children with her. I commend her for not bringing children to a protest rally against a violent neo-nazi group.

Education Policy

This is a blog to discuss the views of the 13 contenders to fill Nikki Tsongas’ seat representing the Massachusetts 3rd District. Last week, we discussed minimum wage, and this week we will be discussing education policy. As stated last week, any candidate who does not have a website will not be discussed further in this blog, because I simply don’t have time for someone who isn’t serious when there are 12 other serious candidates.

Here is a table showing each candidate’s views on the most common liberal ideas for education. Again, I will color-code answers in terms of more liberal being bluer, more moderate being redder, and more confused being grayer. The names are listed in order from most liberal to most conservative, with ties broken by their placement in last week's table.

Name	Universal Pre-K	Charter Schools	Free Higher Ed
Das	Yes	No	Expanded educational grants, improved loan transparency
L’Italien	Yes	No	Free public higher ed, reduce loan interest rates
Chandler	Yes	No	Free Community College, reduced price state colleges
Gifford	Yes	Not mentioned	Reduce costs
Koh	Yes	Not mentioned	Reduce costs
Trahan	Improvements	Not mentioned	Reduce costs of higher ed
Malone	Yes	Not mentioned	Reduce student debt
Littlefield	Not mentioned	Not mentioned	Reduce costs of higher ed
Matias	Not mentioned	Yes	Improve Access

Abhijit "Beej" Das wants to promote skill- and jobs-based learning programs, especially for students who are not going to college. He wants differentiated instruction in the classroom.

Barbara L’Italien talked a lot about education policy when I met her in person. She supports improvements to education for children with learning differences and ELL. Two of her children are teachers. As of this posting, her website does not have an "issues" page in which she discusses her positions on individual issues.

Alexandra Chandler supports teachers, acknowledging that we are the front line of education. She also wants to reduce federal student loan rates below market rates.

Rufus Gifford doesn’t say much on the issue.

Dan Koh wants to focus on STEM.

Lori Trahan does not appear to believe in free college or pre-k, but wants to reduce the costs so that more families can afford them.

Bopha Malone took two paragraphs not to say much on this issue.

Patrick Littlefield only mentioned making higher ed more affordable on his website.

Juana Matias has only one sentence on education policy on her website, but this article claims she supports charter schools.

Next week, the topic will be healthcare.

The following candidates do not talk about specific education policies on their websites.
• Jeff Ballinger
• Keith St. John

Minimum Wage

The topic this week is minimum wage. The information in this post comes primarily from the debate held on February 6th, in the second video, starting at 4:46, and ending at 21:00. I supplemented this with information from each candidate’s website, where possible.

Everyone says that minimum wage is too low. Even the business-friendly candidates say that it is too low. The table below sums up each candidate’s position. When there was nuance to their answer, it will be more purple. When their answer was more liberal, it will be more blue, and more conservative will be more red. Answers which showed a lack of knowledge or understanding will be more gray.

Name	Index to Inflation?	Raise?	Lower costs of living?	Business Friendly?
Chandler	Yes, to CPI	Yes	Yes	Yes
Das	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Trahan	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
L’Italien	Yes	Yes	Yes	No.
Littlefield	Yes, not to CPI	Yes	Yes	No.
Matias	Yes	Yes	Yes	No.
St. John	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes.
Ryan	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes.
Gifford	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Golder	Yes, not to CPI	Yes	Yes	No.
Koh	Yes, to productivity	Yes	Yes	Yes.
Malone	Yes, to housing	Yes	Yes	No.

Alexandra Chandler thought she sounded smart when she said that minimum wage should be indexed to CPI. She didn’t specify which CPI, and CPI is just another word for inflation. She was also the only person who specifically said that we should expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, and then she mentioned apprenticeships.

Abhijit "Beej" Das pointed out that in addition to raising minimum wage and indexing it, we also need to keep the other costs of living down.

Lori Trahan also talked about affordable daycare and affordable healthcare to help reduce the income inequality gap.

Barbara L’Italien pointed out that Massachusetts raises minimum wage regularly. In fact, though she didn’t point this out, Massachusetts has raised minimum wage faster than inflation in the past 20 years. She gets some of the credit for her votes to increase the minimum wage here.
Unfortunately, she then said that we should index Social Security to inflation, not realizing that Social Security is already indexed to chain CPI. This shows a lack of understanding of Social Security on her part.

Patrick Littlefield doesn’t think that you should index minimum wage to inflation.

Juana Matias responded to this vehemently, and also pointed out that we need to address educational achievement gaps.

Keith St. John points out that while a $17.50 minimum wage in Massachusetts makes sense, it would be crippling in other parts of the country where living expenses are significantly lower.

Terry Ryan focused on his experience with the Small Business Association, pointing out that we should also give tax breaks to small businesses to counterbalance the minimum wage.

Rufus Gifford pointed out that we need to fix the relationship between business and labor, so that employers value workers more.

Leonard Golder wants to raise the national minimum wage to $15 first, before indexing it to something, and pointed out that the Chain CPI used for Social Security COLA adjustments does not grow fast enough. He recommended using Core CPI instead, despite the volatility of Core CPI.

Dan Koh pointed out that worker productivity needs to be reflected in worker wages

Bopha Malone tried to tie this to homelessness. She also wants to help families with childcare and transportation.

Steve Kerrigan has dropped out of the race.

Starting next week, I will no longer be covering any candidate who does not have a website. If you are running for congress, you need a website, or you aren't actually serious. Also, covering the views of 13 very similar candidates is a lot harder and a lot more time intensive than covering the views of 3 very different candidates in my previous blog. (During the 2016 election, I covered the candidacies of Clinton, Johnson, and Stein, the three serious candidates for president.)

The topic next week will be education policy.

February 6th Debate - Viewer's Guide

I do not recommend watching the February 6th debate unless you have a guide open to tell you who is talking. The moderator mumbles as he calls people by their first names, and about one third of the candidates on the stage are old white men who are hard to tell apart by face, voice, or policies.

For that reason, I am putting together a viewer’s guide to the debate. You can pause the video each time a candidate stands, to look up their name in this post, or you can use this post as a reference to only listen to the candidates or the issues which most interest you.

Video 1 of 3

First speaker, Lori Trahan, 44 seconds: Would you be in favor of overturning Citizens United by either statute or constitutional amendment? Which methodology would you prefer?

Alexandra Chandler, 1:50: Do you favor retention, modification, or repeal of the electoral college? What is your reasoning?

Keith St. John, 3:23: Do you align more with the efforts to legalize medical marijuana, [with efforts to] approve recreational marijuana, or with strict adherence to federal guidelines and enforcement procedures?

Abhijit “Beej” Das, 4:45: Would you be in favor or against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act? Why or why not?

Steve Kerrigan, 6:12: Would you be in favor or against the reauthorization of the Patriot Act? Why or why not?

Rufus Gifford, 6:55: What do you think about the marijuana [question]?

Bopha Malone, 8:21: Are you in favor of continuing the issuance of FISA warrants? (Bopha admits that she does not know what FISA is, and promises to learn.

Lori Trahan, 9:56: Are you in favor of continuing the issuance of FISA warrants?

Dan Koh, 10:55: What do you think about the marijuana [question]?

Dan Koh, 11:41: Would you vote to mandate Net Neutrality?

Juana Matias, 12:25: Would you vote to mandate Net Neutrality?

Barbara L’Italien, 13:08: Would you vote to shut down the government for an extended period of time to get a “clean” DREAMers bill passed?

Patrick Littlefield, 14:22: Would you vote to shut down the government for an extended period of time to get a “clean” DREAMers bill passed?

Juana Matias, 15:52: Would you support reauthorization of the Patriot Act?

Leonard Golder, 16:30: Would you support reauthorization of the Patriot Act

Alexandra Chandler, 17:28: Would you support reauthorization of the Patriot Act

Alexandra Chandler, 18:36: What are your feelings on Citizens United?

Terry Ryan, 19:58: Do you support Citizens United or its repeal?

Barbara L’Italien, 20:54: What are your feelings on the retention, modification, or repeal of the electoral college?

Rufus Gifford, 22:27: In ten years, when you look back at your first bill, what will that bill have achieved?

Abhijit “Beej” Das, 24:04: What bill will they name after you?

Video 2 of 3

Bopha Malone, 0:36: What will your first bill achieve?

Keith St. John, 1:48: What is your feeling about FISA warrants?

Lori Trahan, 3:03: What are your feelings on the electoral college?

Would you support indexing the minimum wage to inflation?
• Patrick Littlefield, 4:45
• Alexandra Chandler, 6:39
• Abhijit “Beej” Das, 7:49
• Rufus Gifford, 8:50
• Leonard Golder, 9:50
• Steve Kerrigan, 11:07
• Dan Koh, 12:15
• Barbara L’Italien, 13:09
• Patrick Littlefield answered a different question, see below.
• Bopha Malone, 15:43
• Juana Matias, 16:44
• Terry Ryan, 17:50
• Keith St. John, 18:58
• Lori Trahan, 20:09

Patrick Littlefield, 15:00: Do you believe that the president should be prevented by law from discharging anyone within the Attorney General’s office while they are under investigation?

Final Question before summary statements

There are only two nations in the world that have a debt limit ceiling: The US and Denmark. The Danish debt ceiling is astronomically high, and is intended to be used only in the event of natural catastrophes and war. The US debt ceiling was contrived as a budget control during the First World War, and recently has come into some disrepute. Do you favor repeal of the national debt limit ceiling?

(This vote was taken by a show of hands, and the camera did not show the entire stage before the hands went down, so the positions of Lori Trahan, Keith St. John, Terry Ryan, Juana Matias, and Bopha Malone are not shown.)

Yes	Chandler	Das	Gifford	Golder	L’Italien
No	Kerrigan	Koh	Littlefield
Not Shown	Trahan	St. John	Ryan	Matias	Malone

Summary Statements
• Alexandra Chandler, 22:17
• Abhijit “Beej” Das, 23:25
• Rufus Gifford, 24:31
Rufus is cut off in the middle of his summary statement, and Video 3 starts with a question about climate change.

Video 3 of 3

Assuming all democratic candidates in the third believe that climate change is not a myth, what steps would you take to encourage federal, state, and local governments to reduce their respective carbon footprints?
• Keith St. John, 0:28
• Abhijit “Beej” Das, 2:44
• Barbara L’Italien, 4:59
• Rufus Gifford, 6: 58

The transition to video three is pretty jarring, and video 3 ends with the moderator saying “Next Question”, so if someone is aware of more videos somewhere, I would love to know about them.

Next week, I will talk about minimum wage. I will tackle this by first stating the general position of all the candidates, and then going through each individual candidate and addressing what they said which was different.