Tom Keane

Privacy in a surveillance society

The devices we use — our televisions, smartphones, computers, even cars — give us vast amounts of information. Increasingly, however, it’s a two-way street: They’re watching us even as we’re watching them. We need an off switch, an idea US Representative Michael Capuano proposes to make into law.

Progressive Insurance — home of cheery, oddly coiffed Flo — offers reduced rates to drivers who install monitors in their cars. The program, called Snapshot, records the hours you drive, the miles traveled, and how hard you brake. Right now it’s voluntary and lasts only 30 days, but already the implications are clear. Those who refuse to let the company track their driving pay more. And it’s not a far step to round-the-clock monitoring and adding in features such as GPS. Drive in “bad” neighborhoods? No discounts for you!

Xfinity, the nifty new name for plain old Comcast, touts its home security system, featuring an advertisement with Mom sitting in her office watching as the kids come in through the front door. As they do, one glances toward the camera, an odd look on her face. We’re supposed to think all is well, but the look may say something else altogether. Perhaps the other kid with her is not a sibling, but a possible lover. Maybe she’s just a little creeped out that Mom is seeing her every move, wondering where else in the house the cameras are installed. And perhaps that isn’t really Mom who’s watching at all.

And then there’s the TV that sees you, the idea that provoked Capuano’s ire. There used to be an old joke about a fool sitting at home watching a game show, eagerly raising his hand to answer questions. It’s a joke no more. Televisions soon will be equipped with front-facing cameras that observe the viewer even as the viewer observes the show. That feature could open up some neat new worlds of entertainment — truly interactive game shows, for instance. But it’s also scary stuff. Imagine a snuggling couple suddenly confronted with an ad for condoms, for instance.

In fact, two-way communication is already here. Anyone who has ever taken an online course knows that teachers see you even as you see them lecture. Close your eyes or stop paying attention and you’ll get a reprimand. Soon, no human involvement will be needed. The new Galaxy S4 smartphone, for instance, tracks your eyes. Look away and the video pauses. Look back, and it restarts. Cool, yes, but potentially, as Capuano says, “an incredible invasion of privacy.”

Capuano is hardly a Luddite calling for banning the new technologies. But he does argue for transparency and the right to refuse to be watched. His proposal, co-sponsored with Walter Jones of North Carolina, would require the television to display the words “We are watching you,” if information is being sent from the home to the carrier — or to anyone else, for that matter. (Jones, by the way, is a conservative Republican, proving that bipartisanship in politics still exists.) It also would add in a kill switch and, critically, would prevent retaliation against consumers who don’t want to be observed.

I suspect that, as Capuano and Jones explore the issue further, they’ll find this idea can apply to a lot more than just TVs. We are becoming a surveillance society: insurers watching drivers, parents watching kids, advertisers watching customers. There has to be a stopping point, particularly because the information that is shared with one can easily be shared with all. “Think about what you do in the privacy of your own home, and then think about how you would feel sharing that information with your cable company, their advertisers, and your government,” says Capuano. The answer, as Nancy Reagan once put it in a different context, is, “Just say no.”

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on June 18, 2013.

Term limits disregard experience

Should Gabriel Gomez win the June 25 Senate contest, I hope he reneges on his vow to limit his term in office. Term limits may make for good campaign fodder, feeding into voter anger about “career politicians” captured by the dreaded D.C. Beltway, but they make for bad public policy. Massachusetts has a reputation for having an outsized impact on national politics. A Bay State senator planning to walk away from the job in a few years would undercut that, hurting his constituents and hurting the Commonwealth.

Granted, Gomez is having some fun. At their first debate, the Republican called Representative Ed Markey a “poster boy for term limits,” a line that’s gotten some traction — and one can understand why. First elected in 1976 at the tender age of 30, Markey, now 66, has spent 36-plus years in Congress — almost an entire lifetime of employment. That pales compared with, say, Michigan Representative John Dingell (57 years and counting), but it’s still good enough to make Markey the second-longest-serving member of Congress from New England. (Vermont’s Senator Patrick Leahy has him beat by a year.)

But there’s a logical flaw to Gomez’s rhetoric. Markey, of course, isn’t seeking another term as a US representative. He wants a new gig — senator — and should he win he’ll start off as a freshman (albeit, a well-known freshman). Term limits proposals don’t usually try to prevent someone from running for a new position. So Gomez’s argument really is less about public policy than it is about trying to persuade voters that enough is enough. It’s a fair point, but not the kind of thing to be enshrined in law.

But suppose it was law — or suppose Gomez as a senator took it upon himself to voluntarily limit his own term?

If the latter, then he’d be like a fighter entering the ring with one hand tied behind his back. Gomez’s position is grounded in an almost naïve belief that all votes in the Senate are equal. That’s technically true, but also largely irrelevant. The real stuff of legislating occurs in committees, such as Appropriations, Judiciary, or Foreign Relations. All proposed legislation first goes to a committee. The committee decides what to consider and what to put on a back burner. Committees tightly control the few measures that go forward: holding hearings, making amendments and, should the bill be reported out for a full vote, managing the process on the floor.

And of course, when we talk about committees, we’re really talking about those who run committees: high-ranking members and, most importantly, committee chairs. And those lofty positions almost always go to those who have been around the longest and proven their legislative mettle. Power, in other words, is connected to seniority.

A Senator Gomez, should he choose not to run after two terms, would be walking away just as he’s getting into a position to really do some good.

Or perhaps what Gomez means is that he’d favor term limits for all, not just himself. If so, we’d nevertheless have the odd sight of senators compelled to leave just as they’ve finally gained influence. But far, far worse, what we’d end up with is a body of amateurs, easy prey for bureaucrats, lobbyists, and advocates — none of whom have term limits.

We’d also have a Congress of incompetents (and cheap gibes notwithstanding, that’s not the case today). There’s a myth about politics that it’s easy, that experience and knowledge don’t count. Untrue. Legislating requires the same kind of smarts and relationships that matter in any other line of work. No business in America would go about firing its most skilled employees merely because they’ve been around too long. Nor should voters.

That doesn’t mean that long-serving politicians should automatically be reelected. Other factors matter: ideas, enthusiasm, engagement, empathy, and so. Still, as former Speaker Tip O’Neill observed in 1991, “This country faces a lot of storms. And . . . when we’re in a storm you’d rather be under a good, old-fashioned, strong, worthy oak than some sapling of a tree that blows with the wind.”

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on June 16, 2013.

Saving democracy

Edward Snowden is an American hero

We’re going to be learning a lot more about Edward Snowden over the next few days, and he and his actions will be mightily debated. Traitor or patriot? Benedict Arnold or Daniel Ellsberg? In the end, I think, he’ll be thought an American hero.

Snowden is the 29-year-old analyst who last week unveiled the existence of a surveillance program — code-named PRISM — run by the National Security Agency, the nation’s top-secret spy shop. PRISM allegedly has the ability to comb through almost every digital or electronic communication we make, whether it be by telephone, e-mail, Skype, Twitter, or other social media. It’s the kind of stuff featured in novels, movies, and TV, but stuff that we knew — of course — was just fiction. The ravings of paranoiacs and conspiracists aside, our government really wouldn’t do that — nor, we thought, could it.

But, from the documents so far released, we now know it can. And from there to actually snooping into the lives of Americans is a very small step, one that may already have been taken. President Obama, responding to questions about PRISM, said that the war on terror requires “trade-offs” on our liberties. And having just learned about the IRS’s politically motivated harassment of conservative groups, it’s not hard to believe that those “trade-offs” might be extensive. Snowden certainly thinks so. “What they’re doing poses an existential threat to democracy,” he says.

Even before Snowden came forward — voluntarily, it should be noted — the White House was already promising an aggressive investigation and prosecution. Members of Congress are split. Republican Peter King, who heads up the Subcommittee on Homeland Security, called for Snowden’s extradition from Hong Kong, where he is now holed up. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is angry as well, urging prosecution. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is going the opposite direction, threatening to file a lawsuit to block the NSA’s surveillance.

Americans, I expect, will be divided on the issue as well. Those who prefer security will support the NSA’s efforts. Those fearful of government overreach will not.

But no matter which side of the equation you’re on, Snowden’s actions are justified, and for a quite different reason. The real problem with the NSA program may not be what it was doing, but that none of us knew. Secrecy is the death of democracy. Without information, without knowing, there can be no opportunity for debate, no oversight by the people.

Indeed, the whole structure of surveillance that we have built up since 9/11 has a Kafkaesque quality to it. There are secret courts that issue secret opinions that no one is allowed to read. When spies demand information from companies like Verizon or Google, those executives aren’t permitted even to acknowledge what information they have handed over. Even members of Congress are held to bizarre standards of secrecy, which is why for some time we’ve had vague warnings from Democratic Senators Mark Udall and Ron Wyden (both members of the Intelligence Committee) that something was amiss, but, until Snowden’s exposé, no ability on their part to say exactly what.

This is no way for a democracy to function. Obama says, “I think we’ve struck the right balance” between privacy and security, but that, so far, that claim has been impossible to assess. Certainly Udall and Wyden disagree, and the rest of us, if we had known, might well have disagreed too. But since we didn’t know, we couldn’t.

Unlike Benedict Arnold, who actually defected to the British, Snowden wasn’t trying to help another government or terrorist group. He was, rather, more like Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who, with the help of his colleague Anthony Russo (as well as the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s office), released the Pentagon Papers. Those documents revealed that US officials had been systematically misleading the public about the Vietnam War. The logic then was the same as it is now: If the people aren’t told the truth, then they are no longer the ones running their government. Ellsberg today says Snowden has shown “the kind of courage that we expect of people on the battlefield.” Indeed. We owe him our gratitude — and perhaps even our democracy.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on June 11, 2013.

Marketing bully

Abercrombie & Fitch’s exclusionary tactics may be backfiring

Abercrombie & Fitch loves to court controversy; edginess gives appeal. Accused of hyper-sexualizing fashion, it has gotten the attention of teens who see the company’s occasional advocacy of, say, group sex as another form of rebellion. But sex isn’t A&F’s real problem. Rather, it’s become something of a schoolyard bully. The company loudly trumpets its commitment to diversity — of race, religion, and sexual orientation — but there’s one type of diversity you won’t see: If you’re bigger or overweight or just not hip enough, Abercrombie is not for you. The company doesn’t want you in its stores. Indeed, it won’t even make you clothes that fit.

Women in particular feel the brunt of A&F’s wrath. It doesn’t carry XL sizes for them, and pants max out at a size 10. (To add fuel to this particular fire, XXL sizes are readily available for guys.) This is hardly unintentional. “In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids. Candidly, we go after the cool kids . . . Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.” Those are the words of the company’s CEO, Michael Jeffries, in an interview from seven years ago. That quote, recently rediscovered, has over the last few weeks provoked a firestorm of controversy in social media. After some delay, Jeffries finally issued an apology, but it was one of those acts of contrition we hear too often from those who are just trying to do some damage control: “We sincerely regret and apologize for any offense caused,” read a press release. In other words, we’re not sorry for what we said; we’re just sorry it got us in trouble.

A&F’s marketing strategy indulges in and legitimizes that worst of adolescent rites, the creation of cliques and through them, inevitably, decisions about whom to exclude. After shocking incidents such as the 2010 suicide of South Hadley’s Phoebe Prince, parents and schools mounted efforts to stop bullying and to get kids to think about the consequences of hurtful words and actions. Abercrombie pushes hard in the opposite direction.

Further complicating things is who A&F defines as being in and out, and it all relates to size and shape. The fashion industry has been under fire lately for creating unrealistic conceptions of body shape and A&F seems a prime example. Size 10 may be the company’s largest, but size 14 is the average for an American woman, meaning that, at best, A&F leaves most girls and women feeling badly about themselves and, at worst, feeds into the rising epidemic of eating disorders that affects adolescent girls in particular.

To a degree, A&F and Jeffries’s attitudes are so over-the-top as to seem absurd, easy pickings for outrage. Other clothing retailers catering to the young and hip — H&M, Forever 21, American Eagle — have sizing charts that go to 18 or greater. And their CEOs don’t go about uttering fatuous pronouncements about whom they’re willing to allow in their stores.

Indeed, A&F is so extreme that it may appear an easy-to-dismiss outlier. It’s not, though. “The fact that Abercrombie is so clear about their goal actually forces us to consider the many subtle messages that kids get about how they are not good or skinny enough,” says Stuart Koman, who heads up Walden Behavioral Care in Waltham, a treatment center for those with anorexia, bulimia, and the like.

Which is why the current spate of controversy is such a good thing. The reaction to A&F is getting kids — all of us, in fact — to think hard about the pressures under which we put girls. Even better, the company seems to be suffering the consequences. Its sales are dropping, its stock price is now under $50 (well below 2011 highs of $77), and there are rumors that Jeffries may be let go when his contract expires in 2014.

Some of this may just be the vagaries of a fickle market, but some also seems connected to a growing discontent with A&F and the philosophies it espouses. Abercrombie may have made one critical miscalculation. In trying to define what is cool or not, it may have missed out that for many of today’s teens, one thing that is not cool is making fun of others.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on June 9, 2013.

First Senate debate: All about expectations

A snippy opening, then things got serious

So far, the Massachusetts senatorial campaign has been a snippy affair, the two candidates — longtime congressman Ed Markey and former Navy SEAL Gabriel Gomez — taking potshots at each other on any manner of personal topics. And thus the opening question, from Globe political editor Cynthia Needham, was about each other’s character. Gomez, up first, turned to Markey, smiled, and said, “After 37 years in D.C., welcome back to Boston.”

To his credit, Markey held his tongue. And from there the debate suddenly veered serious, delving into the tough topics of the day: gun control, national health care, middle-class struggles, war-making, Washington scandals, immigration reform, and abortion.

Moderator Jon Keller has developed a near-master’s touch of keeping the conversation moving. He permitted a 90-second response to each newly posed topic, and then forced a series of ever-shorter rebuttals. If the candidates were actually adding something rather than merely repeating themselves, he would let them go on. Otherwise, off to a new topic.

A first debate between candidates is all about expectations. The worry about Markey has been that he’s a weary old pol, running his campaign on autopilot. The man who showed up, however, looked good and seemed engaged, refusing to sit back and absorb Gomez’s punches.

For his part, the neophyte candidate — portrayed as more image than substance — mostly seemed to know what he was talking about. Granted, there was one mystifying series of exchanges about whether Markey had ever authored successful legislation over the last 20 years. Gomez would say he hadn’t, and on each rebuttal Markey would tick off a new list of those he had. Bad move: It just gave Markey an opportunity to blow his own horn. Still, on other matters — such as the fears businesspeople have about the impending costs of Obamacare — Gomez seemed far more in touch with on-the-ground worries.

This was also a time for each man to size up the other. One expects Gomez will have a better answer next time around on Roe v. Wade and picking Supreme Court justices. One expects as well that Markey will do better when he talks about the scandals currently embroiling the Capital. He sounded far too defensive about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and, come to think of it, never answered the question posed to him: Should Attorney General Eric Holder be fired?

Meaning, I think, there’s a lot more to come in debate number two.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on June 6, 2013.

The BRA must stay

The Boston Redevelopment Authority is a bogeyman to many, a seemingly all-powerful agency that, depending on its position on any particular issue, can be the bane of everyone from neighborhood activists to developers to good-government types. It has its roots in a very different Boston — the dilapidated city that gave rise to the phenomenon of urban renewal — and can feel curiously dated today. “The BRA must go,” argues a piece in the current issue of Boston Magazine, pressing those running for mayor to get rid of the agency altogether.

That may or may not make a good campaign issue (I’m not persuaded debates over bureaucratic restructuring engage many voters), but a word of advice to those who would hold the office: Some reforms might be merited, but ceding away the mayor’s power to control development would not only make a hash of your term, but might prove deeply hurtful to the city itself.

Granted, “redevelopment” is an anachronistic word and the failure to include “planning” in the BRA’s name sends the wrong signal. So one easy reform is a title change: the Planning and Development Authority, perhaps. Another reform worth considering relates to the agency’s funding. Right now, the authority both promotes and approves development, supporting itself from the revenues generated. That looks to be a conflict; some fear the BRA’s interest in enriching its own coffers takes precedence over smart planning. Examples of that occurring are hard to find but still, in the world of politics, perception is critical.

The BRA was created by the Legislature in 1957 to try to spur development in a city that, like other cities across America, was dying. It spearheaded the razing of the West End, the creation of Government Center, and the development of the Prudential Center. Those projects did help revive Boston, but at a cost of unwarranted demolition, ugliness, and social upheaval. The blame for that lies more with the times than the BRA, however. Back then the conventional wisdom of planners and urban theorists boiled down to a belief that cities must be destroyed in order to be saved. Virtually no one subscribes to that view today.

The times may have changed but the BRA still has power, albeit with a bit of a wink and a nod. It is ostensibly independent of the city government, with its own board and a director, but in practice it reports to the mayor. That allows it to play two roles. Almost any development activity itself generates pushback. Change is hard, and resistance is strong, and the easiest thing for a politician to do is to cave to opponents. The BRA — under its guise of independence — provides cover to those who know development must occur but would prefer to avoid the political heat. On the other hand, if opposition is too strong, or if it appears that the direction of the authority is off kilter, it’s relatively easy to get a decision reversed. Menino’s done that many times, and the next mayor will undoubtedly have the same opportunities.

And if there were no BRA? Development would fragment and stall. NIMBYism would rule the city as opponents would find it ever easier to block things they didn’t like. Absent a strong authority able to play developers off each other, projects would be piecemeal, disconnected from each other, and less in tune with the fabric of the neighborhoods in which they were located. Then too, with power dispersed, developers would reach out to influence local politicians and power brokers, trading favors and cutting deals for their approvals. At the same time, we’d probably get lots of pie-in-the-sky planning exercises, the kinds that sketch out wonderful alternatives that never materialize because the most important players — those who would actually pay for and build the projects — were not at the table.

Of course, for those who would like to see things remain as they are, all of this would be fine. Indeed, there’s a term of art for their position. It’s called the “1950s.” That was the era of infighting, stagnation, and degeneration that created the conditions that gave us urban renewal in the first place. It’s not an era to which Boston should return.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on June 4, 2013.

Was ‘pond scum’ the best Gomez could do?

Gabriel Gomez recently called Ed Markey “pond scum,” a remark that enlivened an otherwise torpid Senate race but also provoked much tsk-tsk’ing from these who wish their politics more genteel. Oh, please. It’s not as if Gomez was the first to ever crudely tear into an opponent. Just before the election last year, Barack Obama used a barnyard epithet to call Mitt Romney a liar. And remember when former Vice President Dick Cheney told Senator Patrick Leahy to attempt something that most medical professionals would describe as impossible?”

It’s not the insults I mind. What I mind is their lack of imagination. Pond scum? Really, Gabe — is that the best you could do?

Gomez was upset about a Markey ad that appeared to compare him to Osama bin Laden. But a far better comeback would have been to wonder whether Markey “has abandoned good principles, or whether he ever had any.” Perhaps he could have said that Markey “is not possessed of the backbone of an angleworm” or that “he couldn’t see a belt without hitting below it.”

Now those are insults — closer to poetry than prose, witty and to the point. I wish I could claim credit for them but, unfortunately, they’re all lifted from others. The first was Thomas Paine trashing George Washington (yes, not even the father of our country was immune from scorn). The second was Ulysses S. Grant upbraiding James Garfield, and the last was Countess Margot Asquith’s take on British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. And they all illustrate two things. First, folks back then were a lot cleverer. And second, it’s all been said before.

Over 150 years ago, British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli denounced Irish agitator Daniel O’Connell, saying, “He has committed every crime that does not require courage.” Of another political opponent, Disraeli said, “He only had one idea and that was wrong.” In 1961 Prime Minister Harold Macmillan uttered words that resonate today: “As usual the Liberals offer a mixture of sound and original ideas. Unfortunately none of the sound ideas is original and none of the original ideas is sound.”

Good lines all.

Americans aren’t above the fray either. Theodore Roosevelt supposedly said William McKinley “has a chocolate éclair backbone.” Here was one political opponent’s take on Dwight Eisenhower: “As an intellectual, he bestowed upon the games of golf and bridge all the enthusiasm and perseverance that he withheld from books and ideas.” And Adlai Stevenson, better known for his wit than his wins, in 1956 described Richard Nixon as, “the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree and then mount the stump to make a speech for conservation.” Harry Truman was also not a Nixon fan: “He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in.”

Even some of our most revered political heroes loved to dish dirt. Abraham Lincoln beat up on his debating partner, Stephen Douglas, saying, “His argument is as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.” Lincoln himself was also frequently the target of abuse. Harper’s Magazine, for example, serenaded him with a stream of invective: “Filthy story teller, despot, liar, thief, braggart, buffoon, usurper, monster, ignoramus Abe, old scoundrel, perjurer, swindler, tyrant, field-butcher, land-pirate.”

Of course, sometimes the put-downs can backfire. “We did not conceive it possible that (someone) would produce a paper so slipshod, so loose-joined, so puerile . . . in its ideas, its sentiments, its grasp.” That was the Chicago Times in its review of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address. Oops. And more recently, US Representative Jack Kemp of New York trashed a colleague, saying, “When his library burned down, it destroyed both books. (He) hadn’t finished coloring in the second.” The target of his venom was Senator Bob Dole. A few years later, in 1996, Dole asked Kemp to be his running mate. That must have been an odd conversation.

The point is that politics and insults are intertwined. A good line gets notice; it may even make a career. In going after Markey, Gomez was just following in a long, hallowed tradition. He just did a bad job of it.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on June 2, 2013.

Curing the ‘Bay State Boondoggle’

It’s us versus them, and normally you want to side with the home team, but when it comes to the so-called “Bay State boondoggle” — the extra hundreds of millions the feds are sending to Massachusetts hospitals — we are, regrettably, in the wrong. Rather than fighting a rear-guard action to justify the unjustifiable, Massachusetts’s pols need to stand up and lead the way to a reformed and more equitable system.

The scam was, no question, wicked clever. Medicare is the federal program that covers health care for those over 65. Under its rules, labor-related payments to urban hospitals have a floor that is equal to wages at a state’s rural hospitals. In the Bay State, it turns out there’s only one such qualified rural hospital: the lovely Nantucket Cottage Hospital, just at the edge of the island’s historic district. Of course, we’re not talking some godforsaken region of Appalachia here, where land is cheap and wages crushingly low. Rather, Nantucket is the playground of the wealthy, and everything is exceptionally expensive (to their credit, islanders do their best to soak the rich in their midst).

The result: 81 Massachusetts hospitals are all benefitting from Nantucket’s exceptionally high costs, receiving something like $250 million to $350 million more a year than they would otherwise. Massachusetts isn’t the only state to profit from this rule; a few others, including California, Arizona, and Connecticut, are helped too, but their gains are relatively small compared to ours. And it might not matter much except for one big problem: Our win means someone loses. Medicare is a fixed pot of money. If we get $250 million more, someone gets $250 million less. In the Nantucket case, that “someone” is much of the rest of the country which, having finally figured out what’s happening, is now mightily incensed.

On Jan. 18, hospital associations representing 19 states released a letter to President Obama demanding a fix, worrying about “reduced funding of more than $3.5 billion over the next 10 years as a direct result of this manipulation of Medicare’s hospital wage index.” A month later, the National Rural Health Association added its voice, saying, “It is an outrage that this blatant manipulation is allowed to continue.” The Senate has already voted to repeal the provision that allows the boondoggle to continue, and it looks as if the House will soon follow suit.

Bay State lawmakers are now in a tizzy, reportedly huddling together in emergency meetings to figure out how to keep the money flowing. The argument is that Massachusetts hospitals are special — “the crown jewels of the American medical system” in the words of Representative Richard Neal — and, of course, they are. But as every parent knows, while all your children may be special, you still have to treat them fairly.

This might just seem an amusing tiff among states but for two deeper problems. One is that the trickery involved feeds into the notion that the new health care law is rigged and flawed: “another Obamacare sweetheart deal,” according to House Ways and Means Chairman David Camp. The upcoming mid-term elections look to be, as they were four years ago, a referendum on national health care. The Bay State boondoggle will doubtless be held up as an example of its failings.

Second, it underscores the flaws of how government pays for health care. In the Nantucket case, the rules were exploited to seemingly pump up all hospitals’ expenses. That illustrates a more general problem: Because we reimburse health care providers for what they spend, the system only encourages them to spend more. And the complexity of such rules is so overwhelming that much of health care today requires specialists to help providers maximize their payments. Little of that has to do with medical quality. Rather — as with the tax code and loopholes — it’s just a matter of figuring out how to game the system.

To that end, some, such as the Massachusetts Hospital Association, are surely right when they argue that one lesson from the boondoggle is that the nation needs a “comprehensive review” of how it funds health care providers. But while we wait for that to happen, the right prescription is to get rid of the boondoggle itself.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on May 28, 2013.

Is the auto franchise system a lemon?

If you want to buy a $25,000 television — and they do exist — there are a number of approaches you might take: Find a retail store that carries it, shop online, or even go direct to the manufacturer. But if you want to buy, say, a new $14,000 Ford Fiesta, your options are limited. You can’t get it from the manufacturer, nor can you purchase it online. Conventional retail stores can’t carry it either. You have only one choice: an automobile dealer.

Buying a car is the bane of every consumer’s existence. There’s that cringe-inducing moment as you walk into the showroom and a salesman (and it’s almost always a man) sidles up, suddenly your best friend, offering you a seat and coffee, eager to hear your life story. There’s the opaque pricing and the fake negotiation — “Let me check with my manager” — and the relentless push for more options, extended warranties, dealer add-ons, and dealer-provided financing.

Why is it that we can’t buy cars like every other good? Why is it that even as we sign the papers, we suspect that somehow and in some way we’ve been bilked? The answer: It’s the law.

In my last column I wrote about the all-electric Tesla and the dreams of its founder, Elon Musk, who may well revolutionize the automobile as we know it. Musk is fighting on a second front as well, this one more plebeian: He wants to change the way we buy cars.

Every state requires auto sales be handled by independently owned auto dealers. Manufacturers are prohibited from selling their own products. That alone means that auto prices are about 6 to 9 percent higher than need be, according to a 2009 report by the Department of Justice. Moreover, the lack of competition makes things miserable for car buyers. The DOJ report, for instance, cites a survey showing half of all consumers would buy from manufacturers “even if it didn’t save any money.” Yes, auto dealers, we really don’t like the way you operate.

And online sales? Also prohibited. There are a number of websites that make it seem as if you can buy online, such as Cars.com, AutoTrader.com, and CarMax.com. But those really are just clever ways of helping you conduct research into makes and pricing — and at the end of the process, sending you to an auto dealer.

So why is it so important that cars be sold through a dealer? The National Automobile Dealers Association would tell you that it’s the high price or the complexity of the machine or that dealers protect consumers. All those arguments are specious. The real reason is the same one that underlies all legislation that restricts trade or limits competition: It’s good for the industry. Consumers get hurt, but since most lobbyists work for businesses (and not consumers), those are the folks to whom legislators kowtow.

Tesla is trying to sell its high-end cars directly to the public, opening its own showrooms around the country. It fears, rightly I think, that existing auto dealers would care less about Tesla’s unusual cars and more about sales of more traditional models. But NADA and its state chapters are mounting a fierce counterattack. North Carolina is close to passing a law that would effectively shut down Tesla, prohibiting direct sales. In Massachusetts, the state dealers’ association sued to shut down Tesla’s Natick showroom. Late last year it lost in court — but continues to lobby the Legislature. Last month, a judge in New York similarly ruled against that state’s dealers.

This may be a fight that NADA wishes it didn’t pick. Tesla is small, and the challenge it offers is (at least right now) quite trivial. But the thinking of many is that, if the court battles go onward and upward, the US Supreme Court will likely rule the entire auto franchise system unconstitutional; under the Interstate Commerce Clause, it would be seen as a restraint on trade. If so, the winners would not only be Tesla but all of us. Imagine how great it would be to buy your next car on Amazon — and even better, never have to deal with a car salesman again.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on May 26, 2013.

An electrifying ride

I’m riding in a red Tesla Model S, the stunning all-electric vehicle from PayPal founder Elon Musk, and realize that this is less a car than a piece of philosophy. In a world beset by environmental pessimism, where many believe we must lower our expectations, downsize our lives, and adjust to the notion that tomorrow will be worse off than today, Tesla offers a rip-roaring, 120-mph riposte. It turns out we can have it all.

Automobiles have been praised and cursed as everything from a manifestation of freedom and individual choice to the source of community destruction and the shredding of social bonds. But one thing is certain: The internal combustion engines that power them consume gasoline or diesel, and for every gallon they consume, about 20 pounds of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere. The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates transportation is responsible for 29 percent of all manmade CO2 emissions. Magically eliminate that, and you’d go an awful long way to solving the problem of global climate change.

The electric car is potentially that magic. Some naysayers argue electric propulsion just pushes the problem upstream: If the power plants used to make electricity burn oil, then there’s no real environmental benefit at all. But most states have a mix of energy sources, many far less polluting. In Massachusetts, for instance, where about 54 percent of electricity comes from natural gas, an electric car driven 40 miles would in effect emit 14.8 pounds of CO2. A conventional car emits 35.3 pounds. And if we were someday to move entirely to renewable sources, of course, the electric car would account for no CO2 whatsoever.

Hence the interest in electric vehicles and their enthusiastic support from many, including the Obama administration. Nevertheless, the first models to be rolled out, such as the Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Volt, were disappointing. With a small range (about 75 miles on a charge) and cramped interiors, they couldn’t be counted on as the principal family car. They felt uninspired and a little bleak.

The Tesla, however, is thrilling. It looks like a sports car, screams luxury, and is outfitted with a myriad of gee-whiz features, including an enormous touch screen that eliminates almost all buttons and knobs. The interior is spacious, holding five adults easily and, with an optional rear-facing seat, another two children — seven passengers in all. Pop the hood and instead of an engine — there is none, since it uses no gasoline — there’s just space for luggage. The performance blows away other cars: from zero to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds. It also has a range of up to 300 miles and can be recharged in about an hour.

How good is it really? Consumer Reports gave the Model S a score of 99 out of 100 — saying it was “not only the best electric car we’ve tested, it’s now our top-rated model overall.” It was also named by Motor Trend as Car of the Year for 2013. Ignore the environmental benefits and it’s still the best car in the world.

On the other hand, it costs anywhere from $62,400 to $87,400 — and that’s after a federal tax credit of $7,500. So I’m not buying it. My guess is, neither are you.

So why the enthusiasm for something priced so far out of the reach of almost every American? Maybe for the same reason that the first computers were so exciting. The original IBM PC, using an operating system developed by a little-known company called Microsoft, sold for $1,565 in 1982 — over $4,400 in today’s dollars. That price was also ridiculously high. But the potential of that technology launched a revolution, one that eventually made computers affordable to almost everyone. Today, for instance, a vastly superior machine — the Chromebook — can be had for under $200.

Last quarter Tesla only sold 4,750 cars — a trivial amount compared to the entire automobile industry. Yet as I sit in the Tesla S, the ride whisper-quiet, the car effortlessly gliding around sharp turns, I’m reminded of that first PC. Tesla may well be about to spark a revolution of its own.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on May 21, 2013.