Boston: Poor doesn't need affordable healthcare

This is just one of those mind-numbingly stupid ideas that only an entrenched big city mayor could dream up:

Mayor Thomas M. Menino embarked on a highly public campaign yesterday to block CVS Corp. and other retailers from opening medical clinics inside their stores, an effort that exposed a rift between Menino and the state's public health commissioner, a longtime ally.

Menino blasted state regulators for paving the way Wednesday for the in-store clinics, which are designed to provide treatment for sore throats, poison ivy, and other minor illnesses.

The decision by the state Public Health Council, "jeopardizes patient safety," Menino said in a written statement. "Limited service medical clinics run by merchants in for-profit corporations will seriously compromise quality of care and hygiene. Allowing retailers to make money off of sick people is wrong."

In a separate letter, Menino urged members of the city's Public Health Commission to consider barring the clinics from Boston. CVS executives said they plan to open 25 to 30 MinuteClinics in Greater Boston before the end of the year, although they have not specified how many of those will be within the city's limits.

So...Menino thinks that a large, well known, publicly-traded company is going to invade Boston and provide shoddy health care. And Menino thinks that, though they have no otherwise affordable access to health care, that those of limited means who have health insurance should either crowd emergency rooms for routine care, or go without routine care at all instead of allowing such clinics within the city limits.

Seriously, I cannot possibly fathom what Menino can be thinking. The fact of the matter is that CVS through its MinuteClinic program is trying to enter the Boston marketplace to fill and obvious and existing need for routine health care. If a private company is willing to come in and fill an obvious public health need without the need to spend public funds, there is no possible net loss to the general public. And Menino's arguments that a private company would "compromise quality of care and hygiene" of patients is insidiously moronic when you consider that a lot of the folks who would frequent such a clinic may not be currently getting care at all. Besides, are you telling me that Public Health in Boston is really the gold standard for health care systems?

Menino's aim here seems to have less to do with protecting public health, and more to do with support of ineffective socialized medicine. Unfortunately, once again another big-city Democrat is putting politics and failed social policy above the needs of their citizens.