DEFINITELY need to cultivate a way better environment for small business. I'd love to use my public sector skills to craft similar programming for anyone who could use it, not just MassHealth qualified folks. Given the trend toward corporatization of everything, we should really try to be progressive leaders in making small business more achievable. We talk a big game about local source in Western MA, but not a lot of action. I was really disappointed to see the crony capitalism in the MassHealth sector when Baker brought Optum on board- another layer of administration and bureaucracy is not what the system needed, and their services can't be cheap, given all their advertising at Fenway and Gilette. (seriously- what are they even selling, exactly? and to whom?) Don't even get me started on the outsourcing of MassHealth customer service to places like Indiana and Wisconsin...

I was driving to the store a couple weeks ago and saw the Repubic waste management garbage trucks picking up in town and wondered whatever happened to local DPWs-- thinking yeah, they saved money going to the corpo, but now that Republic is the only game in town, they can pretty much name their price, can't they?

I digress for sure, but looking to big business for everything is eventually going to be a losing proposition.