The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • A12

A12 The Boston Globe TUESDAY, JULY 21, 2009 Che (Kobe Founded 1872 P. STEVEN AINSLEY Publisher MARTIN BARON Editor PETER S. CANELLOS Editor, Editorial Page CALEB SOLOMON Managing Editor Cutting costs at the Registry You fce KICKIH6 UP You Letters to the Editor branch, which is next in line, along with the RMV office at the Cambridgeside Galleria. Kaprielian is wisely targeting branches now operating in rented spaces. The RMV estimates that it will save $1.7 million in annual leasing costs after December when the round of closures is complete.

To compensate, the Registry is opening at least five new branches in rent-free, state-owned space. Many users may face a longer drive to a branch. But users of the busy Chinatown branch, slated to close in December, will find service in a downtown site equally accessible to public transit, say RMV officials. Shedding commercial leases is a sensible response to the Registry's $13 million budget cut. The state court system is taking a similar approach as it looks to consolidate district courts and reduce the $38.5 million now spent annually on commercial leases.

Other state agencies should follow the example. And local officials concerned about losing branches in their area should try to find rent-free space for the Registry, perhaps in municipal buildings. RMV officials, meanwhile, are miles ahead in the cost-cutting creativity department. Basic Registry functions, for example, can now be handled for no extra cost including Saturday hours by auto club workers in the AAA offices in West Newton and Worcester. There should be enough space both online and rent-free to keep the RMV lines moving.

THE DECISION to close 1 1 branches of the Registry of Motor Vehicles wasn't made lightly or without a follow-up plan. While the closings are sure to create some inconvenience, the public should bear with a state agency that is being bolder than many when trying to maintain core services in the face of steep budget cuts. Once the place of interminable waits and surly service, the 33-branch Registry has improved greatly over the past decade through better customer service training, creation of special queues designed to reduce waiting times, and close collaboration with the courts to protect the public by ensuring prompt license suspensions of dangerous drivers. But the biggest change for the average driver is or should be the expanded ability to perform routine Registry tasks such as license and registration renewals online. The Registry estimates that at least one-third of the people waiting in its branches don't need to be there.

"We're driving people to the Internet," says registrar Rachel Kaprielian. But some people don't want to go along for the ride. Petition drives are underway to save the Southbridge branch, which is slated to be closed in August. The first branch fell on Friday with the closing of the North Attle-boro office. New Bedford residents are angry over the scheduled closing of their 1 OP-ED CRITICAL OF COMMENTS (2 COMMENTS) opposing viewpoints and cannot discuss any issue without denigrating the other side.

Who wants to discuss anything with people who refuse to listen? People who want actual discussion will be driven away by those who don't. If news websites want discussion, they need to be much more heavy-handed with moderating the comments. Without a full-time moderator who can keep the attacks and inaccuracies to a minimum, don't expect anything to change. JONATHON LONG Need to weed out the blather DOUGLAS BAILEY is correct that comments on newspaper websites are mostly worthless right now a comment? Keep it to yourself," Op-ed, July 15). There are some users who would like to discuss the matters at hand, but most commenters have no desire to have any sort of intelligent discussion.

Instead, they would rather attack the neutrality of the paper or make sweeping generalizations on partisan lines. These commenters have no interest in actual discussion. They're closed-minded and will simply attack or ignore any comment that goes against their way of thinking. This kind of behavior is considered acceptable thanks to radio and cable talk show hosts, who frequently shout down How to pay doctors It's one place in paper where public can speak up WE, THE people who comment on Boston.com and other websites, are sorry to pollute Douglas Bailey's sea of information with our own thoughts, beliefs, and opinions a comment? Keep it to yourself," Op-ed, July 15). I understand how much lower we are on the journalistic food chain, clearly signifying how much less education, wit, and knowledge we have on politics, religion, history, the world, and life itself.

But Bailey admitted in his first paragraph something that discredits his complaint: "The variety of available technology and material perfectly feeds my mania: Internet, satellite radio and TV, digital phone, instant messaging, newspapers, magazines, e-books, Twitter, Facebook, CNN, Boston.com, Slate, and on and on." Do comment sections on websites not feed his mania? He'll take Facebook updates and tweets, but when it comes to something longer then 140 characters and intended for a slightly larger audience than online "friends," he becomes frustrated to the point of devoting an entire op-ed to denouncing the single part of newspapers to which the public finally has a chance to contribute? Get a grip on reality. The 2006 Time Person of the Year wasn't really you, Doug Bailey. It was meant to be all of us, signified by and due to the computer on which the pronoun was printed on the magazine's cover. And yes, before revising this letter, I posted it as a response to his column online, in despair, of course, because reading the comments section would be beneath him. DAMI AN AUFIERO Somervilk but costs have escalated.

A switch to global payments in the hands of so-called accountable care organizations with doctors, labs, imaging specialists, and even hospitals could bring costs under control. When health insurers used a capitation system in the 1990s, patients were denied care unfairly. To avoid such problems, the commission calls for rigorous monitoring and a focus on quality. A first step will probably be legislation to create some kind of public board or authority to work out the specifics of the sticks and carrots that would wean providers from fee-for-service. One carrot will have to be tax credits or outright subsidies to speed up doctors' and hospitals' adoption of electronic medical records.

Such records are crucial to the coordination that accountable care organizations should be able to provide. To help ensure that any new payment system produces better care and not just cheaper care, the oversight panel should include at least one representative of a consumer group. The Legislature should also give the board more direction than the report provides. In 2006, lawmakers opted to let the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority work out many details of new health plans for the uninsured. But totally revamping health payments is a far more complex task that will require more explicit marching orders from Beacon Hill.

PAYING FOR healthcare on a fee-for-service basis is an inflation engine that, unless something changes, will cause health spending in this state to double by 2020. A legislative commission wants to replace fee-for-service with per-capita payments that would be handled by groups of healthcare professionals with full responsibility for an individual's care. One-fifth of doctors in the state are already paid this way. Making it the norm could be the secret to better, less costly medicine. Ideally, this shift in incentives will mean that a patient, for instance, will leave a hospital with enough discharge support so that she won't be re-admitted a week later.

Or, a primary-care physician checking an overweight patient for a strep throat will have enough time to talk to the patient about exercising more to lose some pounds. A well-crafted "global" payment system should pay for such preventive measures in ways that fee-for-service does not. The commission issued its report on the same day last week that the head of the Congressional Budget Office told Congress that its various health reform proposals, including ones with a public insurance plan to compete against high-overhead private plans, would all raise federal spending. This state's three-year experience with its health reform supports his conclusion. Less than 3 percent of the population is now uninsured, JOHN OVERMYER ILLUSTRATION DISPATCH FROM DISCOUNT RETAIL The Banner's questionable loan would say Abraham missed the boat on this one, and a good deal on a pair of shorts that the toddler would likely grow out of before they fell apart in the wash.

ANNE MATTINA Hopkinton Making strides at Wal-Mart IF IT has been 10 years since Yvonne Abraham visited a Wal-Mart and stop," Metro, July 15), she's welcome back, and she might even learn some new things about our stores and our company. We're not only providing quality merchandise at everyday low prices and improving the shopping experience in our stores, but we're also leading in the areas that matter most to our Should've bought that pair of shorts I HAD to read Yvonne Abraham's column twice to make sure I wasn't missing something and stop," Metro, July 15). After a second go, I decided I hadn't. To surmise: Quality costs, or, you get what you pay for. This is news? I admit a strong bias here, as I am a Target loyalist, but unlike Abraham, I never fooled myself into thinking I was doing something noble by shopping there (other than saving my family a few bucks).

In using Ellen Ruppel Shell's book "Cheap" as a jumping off point for the column, Abraham shortchanges her readers by not examining what would appear to be the author's reason for the book: exposing suspect practices in discount retail. I associates, customers, and shareholders. We believe we can have an economy that is greener, a population that has access to affordable and quality healthcare, and a workforce that has the skills and knowledge it needs to succeed in good times and to transition when times get tough. For these reasons and more, nearly 20,000 customers in Massachusetts have already joined our Customer Action Network to help educate those, such as Abraham, who are not aware of the significant strides the company has made in the areas of sustain-abiliry, healthcare, and economic opportunity. CHRIS BUCHANAN Senior manager, public affairs and government relations Wal-Mart Plymouth THESE ARE hard times for newspapers, so much so that owners of papers big and small are taking once-unthinkable steps to survive.

The Bay State Banner's decision late last week to accept a $200,000 loan from the City of Boston may keep the business going for now, but the loan also creates major ethical dangers for the paper. Faced with slumping advertising revenue, publisher Mel Miller said that he was getting ready to shut down the newspaper, long a vital news source for Boston's African-American community. When word got out, Harvard University law professor Charles Ogletree started lining up investors to save it. Meanwhile, Mayor Menino offered a loan, which he described as an effort to "help a business that is very important to the minority community." The community that the Banner covers is also very important to a mayor who is running for reelection. Miller insists that his newspaper will continue its traditionally tough coverage of the Menino administration.

Maybe it will. But that is only one part of the journalistic conundrum. By letting Menino rush to the Banner's rescue, Miller is letting the mayor score points with voters in a way no rival can duplicate. Menino may have the noblest of intentions, but incumbency is what gives him the power to fulfill them. The loan comes from the Boston Local Development which is administered through the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

In accepting Menino's offer, Miller told the Globe that "only a fool wouldn't take it." Letting the Banner fail, he said, would "deprive the community." The Banner's value to the community lies in its independence. Even in desperate times, it would be foolish to squander that independence by accepting the mayor's offer of a loan especially in an election year. Opponents of transgender rights bill employ scare tactics I AM writing in response to the hearing on An Act Relative to Gender-Based Discrimination and Hate Crimes, also known as the transgender civil rights bill, that the state's Joint Committee on the Judiciary heard on July 14. 1 attended the hearing, and I was shocked and saddened at how often opponents to the bill brought up sexual assault in bathrooms. I am offended that they prey upon my experience as a woman to try to engender fear and hatred for transgender people instead of presenting any reasoned and rational opposition to protecting our citizens' civil rights.

In the 13 states that have this law, as well as the District of Columbia and municipalities including Boston, Cambridge, Amherst, and Northampton, no such incident of the type of assault they are alluding to has ever DEPUTY MANAGING EDITORS SENIOR VICE PRESIDENTS MarkS. Morrow Sunday and Projects Dante Ramos happened. It was fairly obvious through their talk of the "homosexual agenda" and, as one man so transphobically put it, "gender wannabes" that opponents to this bill are using women for their own political gain. How dare they hurl baseless accusations? The heartfelt and reasoned arguments I heard from proponent after proponent deserved to be engaged on their own grounds. After attending the hearing and witnessing these attacks, I can't help but support this bill.

ROSE MACKENZIE Salem VICE PRESIDENTS Harriet E.Gould Employee Relations Advertising Peter Ockerbloom Advertising Christopher L.Hall Human Resources Robert M. Powers Gregory L. Thornton Employee Relations and Operations Susan Hunt Stevens Digital Samuel P. Martin Chief Advertising Officer Christopher Pircio Chief Financial Officer ChristopherM. Mayer Circulation and Operations Wm.

Davis Taylor bl sher 'Ti William O. Taylor Richard H. Oilman Laurence L. Winship Doug Most Features Christine S.Chinlund News Operations Letters should be written exclusively to the Globe and include name, address, and daytime number. They should be 200 words or fewer; all are subject to editing.

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