THE PIONEER BLOG

Joshua Archambault

FY13 Healthcare Spending Tips 50% of State Budget ($16.5B)

/4 Comments/in , /by

During the formation of the FY 13 budget the Governor and his staff made a point to highlight the fact that healthcare spending now composes 41% of the spending. They warned: Based on long term forecasts conducted by the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, were health care costs to continue to grow at these historic rates, they would consume approximately 50% of state spending by 2020. Health care spending has crowded out key public investments that, among other things, likewise significantly impact the health and welfare of the people in the Commonwealth. The historic trends are also unsustainable for local governments, businesses and families, forcing all of these groups to make difficult choices between paying for health care and other […]

Jason Turesky

Pioneer’s www.massreportcards.com makes comparing schools a breeze

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

It’s no surprise to hear that public schools in wealthy communities tend to outperform those in less fortunate areas.  The surprise is the ease of measuring this disparity and many others, too: just take a look at the numbers on Pioneer Institute’s education transparency website, www.massreportcards.com. For example, Weston and Lawrence high schools serve opposite ends of the income spectrum.  Weston consistently ranks as one of the wealthiest towns in Massachusetts while Lawrence ranks among the poorest. This dichotomy is mirrored in their respective high schools’ graduation rates and post-graduation plans. As one might expect, Weston has a whopping 96 percent graduation rate with less than one percent of students dropping out.  Compare that to Lawrence, where less than half […]

Joshua Archambault

ACA Impact, Part 5: New $63 Per-Head Tax

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

The headline from the AP this morning Surprise: New Insurance Fee in Health Overhaul Law The fee will total $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion in 2016. That means the per-head assessment would be smaller each year, around $40 in 2015 instead of $63.

Jim Stergios

A new law expanding virtual schools?

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Back in January 2010, there was a lot of hope that the charter school expansions associated with the new law would work out well. The data on that is largely tremendous. The new charters are faring very well, thank you. There were other elements in the law including the creation of statewide “virtual schools,” schools where students could do much of their coursework online. That promise was not kept, as the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education put into place what were onerous regulations that dissuaded all but the Superintendent of Greenfield Schools from attempting to create such an entity. Susan Patrick, perhaps one of the most informed policymakers on virtual education, noted at a recent event in Massachusetts that […]

Jim Stergios

Advice to the President and Arne Duncan

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

In 2009, Pres. Obama effectively used the “bully pulpit” to expand charter schools, changes that were adopted by state legislatures around the country. During the next three years, the administration opted for a “top down” approach, with Race to the Top pushing state compliance with federally defined state reforms. These included not yet field tested Common Core standards, not yet complete national tests and bureaucratic teacher evaluation systems. In a second Obama administration, these efforts are likely to get bogged down in the complexities of implementation; importantly for Massachusetts, they undo key reforms that have driven our remarkable success. Instead, I’d advise the president to do three things. First, revert to using the bully pulpit, this time to improve the […]

Joshua Archambault

ACA Impact, Part 4: $3.89 Billion in New Insurance Taxes Over 10 Years

/0 Comments/in , , /by

I have written many times before on this blog about individual provisions in the ACA/ Obamacare and their impact on Massachusetts. Some examples include: Obamacare Means Big Changes for Romneycare How SCOTUS ACA/Obamacare Ruling Impacts Mass ACA Impact, Part 1: Low-income Residents will Pay More for Healthcare and Insurance ACA Impact, Part 2: $14B in Medicare Cuts for Massachusetts ACA Impact, Part 3: Cadillac Tax on Middle-Class and Up, $87K for Small Biz Employee Will the ACA Bankrupt the Mass Connector? Understanding ACA’s Essential Health Benefits for MA: Square Peg in a Round Hole? A Dive into the MA Health Reform Waiver & Why it Matters to the Future of the ACA Will Mass Set up a Basic Health Plan […]

Jim Stergios

The perfect storm facing Jewish Day Schools

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

More than 100,000 students in 10 states – including Rhode Island and New Hampshire – are currently educated under tax credit programs. Massachusetts has so many exceptional private and parochial education options, and our school children deserve the same options. Jewish Day Schools, for example, are facing a perfect storm of rising costs and declining philanthropic support.

Jim Stergios

Boston.com – “Inside the Hive”: State officials don’t have experience to play green tech investor

/0 Comments/in , /by

What state policymakers can do to help build our green energy sector.

Jim Stergios

Students in which states are climbing the highest?

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Reformers in other states, even ones with a sharp eye on keeping costs down, would do well to look at Massachusetts as much and, frankly, even more than Florida.

Joshua Archambault

What can Oklahoma Teach Massachusetts on Healthcare?

/0 Comments/in , /by

More patients and companies are moving away from traditional healthcare; this video of the Oklahoma Surgery Center explains why.

Tom Nash

Inefficiency at Wellesley Schools stifles transparency

/0 Comments/in , /by

Sometimes the smaller the bureaucracy gets, the more inefficient or unwilling it is to provide basic data that would help show how well it’s fulfilling its responsibilities. The Wellesley Public School System is one example that Freedom of Information website MuckRock has encountered in its ongoing work to make public entities comply with the commonwealth’s public records laws. MuckRock, in partnership with the Pioneer Institute, filed several requests for Individualized Education Plan (IEP) data across Massachusetts. We were looking for basic enrollment information, including: – The number of students evaluated by the district to determine if they qualified for an IEP – The number of students who qualified for an IEP based on that evaluation – The number of students […]

Joshua Archambault

Can Mass ACOs & ICOs Co-Exist? Wait…What is an ICO?

/0 Comments/in , /by Joshua Archambault

For those keeping track at home, ACO is the acronym for an accountable care organizations. Under the new growth capping law Chapter 224 passed in July of 2012 here in Massachusetts, they are given strong contractual preference to deliver care for all state programs, and for those in the non and small group markets. They also were part of the ACA at the federal level. In fact, five provider systems in Massachusetts have been federally registered as an ACO. In the new Massachusetts Medicaid “duals” pilot program, for 110,000 individuals on both Medicare and Medicaid, the state recently selected six insurer-centric ICO ” integrated care organizations” to deliver the care. So one is prone to ask: Will these two parallel […]

Joshua Archambault

9 States to Watch for ACA Implementation

/0 Comments/in , /by Joshua Archambault

Healthcare reporters have been in a frenzy to report this week that the ACA is a done deal and states should get on with it. The election certainly changes the dynamic in the repeal effort, as Speaker John Boehner indicated in a recent interview with ABC News, yet the implementation battle is far from over. The next interesting story line is developing out of an OK lawsuit pertaining to the legality of subsidies being made available in the federal exchange. To be more specific, it challenges an IRS rule that imposes ACA employer mandate where the statute does not appear to authorize it. If this case were to prevail, it would undermine the “fallback” federal exchange that is going to […]

Jim Stergios

Don’t Count Your Chickens Before Elections: Tony Bennett’s Defeat in Indiana

/0 Comments/in , , , /by Jim Stergios

In what you might call a “count your chickens before they hatch” moment, even as late as the morning of Super Tuesday (November 6, 2012, 7:16:15AM EST) Virginia Edwards of EdWeek’s “Leadership Forum” sent an email invitation entitled “Save the Date: Road Maps to Common Core Success in March 2013.” I invite you to attend Road Maps to Common Core Success. This Education Week Leadership Forum is taking place in Indianapolis, IN on March 11, 2013 and in White Plains, NY on March 21, 2013. At this day-long event, you will hear from state and district leaders, education experts in, and other colleagues on their common core implementations, and discover and share new ideas on curricula, teacher training, and assessment. […]

Jim Stergios

Fallout from election 2012 on education

/0 Comments/in , , , /by Jim Stergios

  You can summarize the fallout of the elections on schools in three simple outcomes: No change in federal policy, two big state charter expansions got passed–and through ballot initiatives (!), and in a blow to supporters of national standards and tests the state superintendent of schools in Indiana got shown the door. In more detail, on federal policy: 1. Arne Duncan stays US Secretary of Education. 2. The next four years will look like the last three years. That is, the first Obama administration was split between a Year 1 and Years 2-4. Year 1 was all using the bully pulpit to get state legislatures to revamp charter laws. It was a sea-change on the education landscape, with the […]