A Healthy
Debate
By: Yvonne Abraham
Bostone Globe, August 21, 2002
MARLBOROUGH - This year's gubernatorial campaign may be about
Massachusetts, but in Marlborough everybody's talking about Canada.
That's where more and more elderly residents, struggling with the cost
of drugs, are getting their prescriptions filled these days.
Among voters in this city of 36,000 along the state's high-tech
corridor, the cost of health care is not only the number one concern - at
times it seems the only concern. They say the candidate for governor who
offers a convincing plan for affordable health care could clean up here.
And so far, despite an initial flurry of proposals put forth on the
campaign trail, no candidate has broken through on the issue.''Why is it
you can buy the same prescription medicine in Canada cheaper than in the
US?'' asked Richard Callaghan, the expansive, cigar-smoking owner of
Callaghan Fire Arms, on Main Street. ''There are some programs, but
they don't make it readily available, or the paperwork is too complicated
and the old people can't keep it up.''
Callaghan, 59, says he keeps his store going just so he can stay in the
health insurance plan offered by the Chamber of Commerce. His premiums are
$340 a month, a bargain considering his recent medical history. He
recently lost a kidney to cancer, he said, but he is more worried about
his 86-year-old mother than himself.
Only the subject of Massachusetts Turnpike toll increases elicits as
much passion as does health care among Marlborough residents. And, in this
city where locals can rail forever about the injustice of paying for the
Big Dig, that is saying something.
''For me, my biggest issue is the elderly, and the problems they're
having with prescription drugs. that's the number one for me,'' said
Sharonee Clapper, 53, an executive assistant who has elderly parents. ''I
don't understand why somebody can't find a way to get affordable medicine.
The one who can come up with a plan will get my vote.''
This city, nestled in the state's fast-growing region between Route 128
and Interstate 495, is at the crossroads of several major highways and at
the junction of old and new Massachusetts. The candidate who can win over
its blue-collar, longtime locals and newer, white-collar workers stands a
good chance of winning the state's highest office.
And from Jake's Coffee Shop to Delaney's news and tobacco store,
Marlborough voters of all ages are worried about skyrocketing prescription
costs and shrinking health care coverage. That rising concern reflects a
national trend, as ballooning health costs and a sputtering economy
threaten to push more medical costs onto employees and swell the ranks of
the uninsured, and as Congress fails to pass a prescription drug benefit
for Medicare.
And it reflects recent developments on Beacon Hill: Legislators and
Acting Governor Jane Swift last month moved to staunch a hemorrhaging
budget by cutting elderly home-care visits and slashing drugstore
reimbursements for Medicaid prescriptions.
Callaghan, a Democrat, is leaning towards state Treasurer Shannon P.
O'Brien because ''she's doing a good job.''
''I compare her to Mrs. Thatcher,'' he said. ''She's forceful, but she
can relate to people.''
But he trusts none of the candidates to fix the health care system.
''Nobody has really addressed it,'' he said. ''They make these
Band-Aids - `Oh, we're looking into this, or into that' - but it's all
just talk. Nobody is coming up with any ideas. And the candidates can't be
held responsible for their campaign promises anyway: They can always blame
the Legislature.''
Other Marlborough residents believe their favored candidates will cure
the ailing health care system, though they acknowledged they have little
grasp of their specific proposals.
Al Racca, 82, has seen the cost of prescriptions creeping up in recent
years and was in no mood to discuss any other issue as he played pinochle
with two other men at the senior center last week.
''I'm a lot worried about drugs,'' Racca said. ''They keep raising the
prices all the time. It cost me $35 for one drug, even though I have
[insurance]. I want a governor to lower the prices. They can get them
cheaper in Canada, why can't they do it here?''
Janice Long, outreach coordinator at the city's Council on Aging
Services, is largely responsible for all the Canada talk in Marlborough.
Long has spent the last few years helping elderly residents who don't
benefit from the state's Prescription Advantage program order their drugs
from Canada over the Internet - at prices 30 to 80 percent cheaper.
''It really bothers me,'' she said. ''It's the same story over and
over: `I left my prescription at the pharmacy because I can't afford it.'
It's very upsetting. I hear it from World War II veterans and the spouses
of veterans, and at a time where they are living longer because these
drugs are so wonderful.''
So, Long searches the Web for cheaper alternatives north of the border,
and, with help from her clients' doctors, orders the drugs. She saved one
woman $2,085, she said, reducing her bill last year to $1,578. But, Long
said, even that is still a burden. She estimates she has saved elderly
residents of Marlborough more than $80,000 in the last two years.
''It's a big issue here in Marlborough,'' Long said. ''This is 90
percent of my work now.''
About 5,000 Marlborough residents, or 13.9 percent, are over 65, only
slightly above the Massachusetts average of 13.5 percent. And, said Mayor
William Mauro Jr., they, like elderly residents elsewhere, vote in large
numbers.
Those longtime residents have seen their city transformed over the last
few decades.
Once a hive of shoe factories, Marlborough was originally home to a
sizeable French Canadian, Irish immigrant, and working class community.
But after World War II, most of the shoe factories closed or relocated.
That development was disastrous for other shoe towns, but in Marlborough,
with Interstate 495 under development (it opened here in 1968), high-tech
industries took the place of the shoe manufacturers.
Raytheon built a plant in Marlborough and still has a new technology
division there. Other companies followed. The city is now home to branches
of Fidelity Investments, 3Com, Hewlett-Packard, Verizon, and Ken's Foods,
among many others. Each workday, the city's population nearly doubles to
70,000, and about 10,000 of those are employed in high-tech companies.
Those companies pay fully half of the city's property taxes, Mauro
said, providing a cushion against state cuts to local aid.
Shopping malls and restaurants are clustered on what was once the
outskirts of town, and the old downtown is home to mom-and-pop
enterprises, many of them run by Brazilians who are part of a growing
population that has settled in the area over the last decade. Mauro
estimates the city is now home to more than 7,000 Brazilians. Most do not
yet vote.
Though the city is now a hive of high-tech industry, it has also
maintained some of its small-town self. Downtown is a neat row of brick
storefronts, handsome churches, and carefully tended wooden houses.
Residents are enthusiastic participants in the city's huge Labor Day
parade, likely to draw every gubernatorial candidate this year.
Marlborough, like many of the cities and towns between Route 128 and
Interstate 495, has grown rapidly over the past decade - by about 14
percent. And though many new residents are foreign born, the population is
still 85 percent white. The median income is about $57,000; the statewide
median is $50,502.
''The blue collar has turned a grayish white,'' said state
Representative Stephen LeDuc, who lives in and represents the city.
Analysts agree the center of gravity for statewide elections is moving
west into this corridor, which is increasingly home to younger,
well-educated people who own their homes. Marlborough is on the edge of
Middlesex County, a populous and politically pivotal region.
''Middlesex County is very important to any campaign because of its
size,'' said Secretary of State William F. Galvin. '' It is almost
impossible to win if you lose Middlesex County, and certainly if you lose
it by a lot. ... Republicans who have won in the past have generally won
Marlborough, and a Democrat certainly needs to win a place like
Marlborough.''
In Marlborough, as in the rest of the state, the number of unenrolled
voters has ballooned over the last 10 years. That means, Galvin said,
Marlborough will likely be more involved in the general election than the
Sept. 17 Democratic primary.
The four Democrats, one Republican, and two minor party candidates have
barely registered on Main Street so far. Few of the dozens of residents
interviewed could name candidates other than Republican nominee Mitt
Romney. Those who could name candidates had trouble talking specifics.
Mauro was thrown off the Democratic city committee for supporting Paul
Cellucci for governor in 1998, but the town eventually went the same way.
Cellucci, after all, is from Hudson, the next town over, with friends and
relatives in Marlborough with whom he remains close.
When Cellucci, now ambasssador to Canada, returns home, he still heads
to Roc's Unisex Salon on Main Street, owned by his friend Bob Yesue.
Yesue's salon is often abuzz with political talk, but so far, he said,
nobody really cares about politics in Marlborough; they're all busy with
other things until Labor Day. He hasn't got much time for Democrats, Yesue
said.
''How can you talk about an election when the Democrats have a
convention and send six or seven candidates out of it?'' he said,
disgusted.
Among the Democrats, many residents agree the contest in Marlborough
will be between O'Brien and Senate President Thomas F. Birmingham. O'Brien
has a good organization in close-by Southborough and won the delegation
Marlborough belongs to at the Democratic State Convention. Birmingham has
strong local ties, too, and the support of Tom Hill, chief of the
Democratic city committee.
''Right now I couldn't tell you which way it's going to go,'' Mauro
said.
''I like Tom Birmingham,'' said Joanie O'Brien, 70, a former fire
department dispatcher and a Democrat ''all the way.'' ''I think he's down
with us people, senior citizens, and families. It's just, I don't know, a
feeling I have. I'm not sure about Shannon O'Brien. It doesn't seem to me
she came up the hard way. I raised five kids here myself the hard way. Her
dad's a governor's councilor.''
Still, Birmingham and O'Brien are still largely unknown in Marlborough,
even among voters who say they normally vote Democrat. By contrast,
Romney, who benefits from his high profile as the former Salt Lake City
Olympics chief, and from being the only Republican in the race, has locals
intrigued.
''Mitt Romney seems to care about what the people think,'' said Glen
Hurley, 27, an Internet editor getting a haircut at Roc's. ''I think he's
overdoing it with the ads showing he's a working man, but the intent is
there. The thing that's bothering me is the lengths [the Democrats] are
going to to smear Romney. They've making themselves look worse by trying
to make him look bad.''
Even the cynics profess a fascination with the Republican.
''Mitt Romney, he seems nice, but he's probably still a crook like the
rest of them,'' said Larry Doucette, a 49-year-old unenrolled voter who
owns Larry the Watch Doctor clock repair store. ''I'd like to know more
about him.''
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