Fed up state rep goes around Dorchester, Mattapan, tearing down those 'Cash for diabetic supplies' signs

2 points:
1. We are all taxpayers and insurance rate payers, we SHOULD be mad when people try to exploit the system by creating a financial incentive to get extra test strips or not use the ones you have, potentially exacerbating diabetes and landing in the ER. WE pay for all of that. So yeah, not a partisan issue here, merely good fiscal responsibility.

2. These adds are on public property, sidewalks, street lights, median strips, etc. so hell yeah, take 'em down,

Is the fact that it’s offering financial incentive for people to stop caring appropriately for their serious health needs.

Please.

All those communitarian sentiments give them heartburn.

Are these buyers paying for the space on the the public property sign posts where their signs were hung? Are the test kits patented intellectual property that can only be produced by a monopoly or a corporation that pays a licensing fee? Was the original purchase of these test kits subsidized by government programs like Medicare? Or perhaps they were purchased using private insurance that colludes with the manufacturers to “negotiate” fixed prices?

Which part is the “free market” part?

so anyone can remove them. What's considered tolerable for advertising a lost cat or a yard sale is no longer OK if you are running a predatory commercial enterprise.

There's a Suboxone sign a few blocks from me that I've been meaning to take down.

Way back when I was on a family vacation and one of my children had some breathing/asthma issues so we went to a local hospital who then directed us to a medical supply store where we were given a nebulizer and equipment (mostly paid for by insurance I believe). When we were done we asked if we needed to return the machine and were simply told to keep it and they wouldn't or couldn't take it back. We had one had home and didn't need the extra machine, so just kept it and I don't remember what we did with it (may have donated it I don't remember).

Anyway it made me think that there is probably a market for medical supplies for people like me and my situation (not the same as diabetics who need supplies don't get me wrong). I assume the company who sold me the machine just gets a new one and insurance pays them on the back end for a new one? A quick glance online looks like machines like this are about $75 as a kit, so I assume it HAS to be worth something to someone.

for years now. Their budgets seem to be going up... originally it was fliers taped to telephone poles, and then it gradually turned into laminated signs and then heavy-duty yard signs.

It's probably not illegal, but there's a reason those signs have a phone number but not a business name. They're encouraging Medicare/Medicaid fraud--I bet if you read your policy real closely, you'll find something in there about not being allowed to resell or give away supplies received under your coverage. Diabetic testing supplies are in one of the weirder categories in the already-extremely-weird American healthcare system, in that you don't need a prescription for them, but you need a prescription to get your insurance to pay for them. I would imagine that puts them under the same regulatory oversight as any other prescription fraud, if someone cared enough to prosecute. I'm glad someone's publicly doing something about these ads, if only to draw attention to them.

just like the political yard signs. I've seen any number of DIY projects that specifically call for corrugated plastic.

The zip tie trick mostly works, but it can be hard to lift the tab without damaging it by bending it too far. Depends on the brand, probably.