THE PIONEER BLOG

Joshua Archambault

Mass Takes a Pass on HSAs

/0 Comments/in , , /by

America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) released a report on the utilization of health savings accounts (HSAs) around the country. Massachusetts has lagged behind for years in the adoption of HSAs. One reason may be that only 43.1 percent of Massachusetts private-sector employers were enrolled in a plan with a deductible compared to 73.8 percent of employers nationally. Massachusetts residents enrolled in high deductible plans (often coupled with an HSA) account for only 2 percent of those with health insurance,  placing the Commonwealth with one of the lowest percentages of residents enrolled in these plans in the nation. The trade-off is two fold. One, these employees are receiving a pay cut as more money is spent on health insurance. Second, the […]

Jim Stergios

Uncommon and common goals

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

The dual mission of Phoenix Charter Academy—giving second chances to troubled youth and a relentless focus on academics—may seem a mission impossible. It isn’t, but the work to address systemic truancy and high dropout rates in our urban school districts presents numerous individual challenges—as many challenges as there are students. In fact, you can summarize the challenge of reclaiming opportunity for at-risk students as exactly that: It can only be done for a single student, and yet the only way to have real impact is to create some sort of scale. So, you have to engage each student toward individual goals, but you also have to manage the unique needs of very different students in a way that they are […]

Steve Poftak

Convention Center Chronicles – Chasing Room Nights

/0 Comments/in , /by

Room nights (nights spent at area hotels by convention attendees) are the key gauge of success for a convention center. How do I know this? The Convention Center Authority says so: Hotel room nights are the key gauge for convention business in Massachusetts So a discussion of room nights should be central to a discussion of any convention center expansion. Except when it’s inconvenient. Here’s Convention Center Authority head James Rooney earlier this year: We’ve gotten sucked in…. to measuring the success of this industry strictly on the notion of how many hotel-room nights are generated. That is narrow-minded thinking. The Authority’s on-again, off-again relationship with room nights is evident from their disclosure. One must work hard to figure out […]

Steve Poftak

Convention Center Chronicles

/0 Comments/in , /by

The Boston Convention Center has long been a topic of interest for this space, dating back to its original construction. To be fair, its done ok, although far less successful than its original projections. Now, the Convention Center Authority has presented the citizens of Massachusetts with an intriguing chicken-and-egg proposition. It needs to expand its size and build a large hotel, as it can’t attract larger conventions without a ‘headquarters’ hotel but it also needs to be larger to attract the largest conventions (which it can’t do without a bigger hotel, got it?). So, what’s the public interest here? A public subsidy (taxes, fees and/or bond funding) will be needed to support the two projects, whose combined price tag may […]

Jim Stergios

Did the 2009 stimulus work?

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Economics21.org provides a graphical representation of the stimulus and reality. Certainly, this figure shows that the stimulus was not even close to successful according to the benchmarks set by the Administration. Back in January 2009, Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein produced a report estimating future unemployment rates with and without a stimulus plan. Their estimates, which were widely circulated, projected that unemployment would approach 9% without a stimulus, but would never exceed 8% with the plan. The estimates, along with real unemployment rates, are posted below: In May 2011, using the latest figures available from the BLS, the unemployment rate reached 9.1%. In contrast, the Romer and Bernstein projections estimated that the unemployment rate would be around 8.1% for this […]

Joshua Archambault

Beacon Hill’s Magical Mystery Medicaid Savings

/0 Comments/in , , /by

As the Senate and House work to reconcile their respective versions of the 2012 budget, I wanted to take one last opportunity to highlight the unrealistic assumptions that are being used for the MassHealth (Medicaid) program. If the state is unable to achieve these “savings” and instead follows historic spending trends, it could be looking at a $900 million gap. See graph here. A recently released report from The National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers “The Fiscal Survey of States” contrasts Massachusetts’s projections to the 49 other states and Puerto Rico. Annual Percentage Medicaid Growth Rate (p52) The average percentage Medicaid growth rate is 18.6 across the nation, Massachusetts will be 0.5%? First introduced in […]

Joshua Archambault

MA Public Opinion of RomneyCare

/1 Comment/in , , /by

Kay Lazar had an interesting piece in The Boston Globe on a joint survey with Professor Bob Blendon of the Harvard School of Public Health on Massachusetts health care reform. I am sure it will be part of the narrative of the presidential race. Some general trends that they noted: Increasing support for repealing the mandate. Forty-four percent said they oppose the mandate in the Massachusetts law, compared with 35 percent who opposed it in a 2008 poll. Residents don’t see a connection between the law and increasing health care costs. Yet when asked about the law’s role in boosting health costs in Massachusetts, 72 percent said rising costs were mainly because of factors other than the law. Perhaps this […]

Jim Stergios

Passion and Fellowship

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

Massachusetts charter schools have a strong record in serving urban and suburban minorities. What about children who are clearly at-risk or have special needs? Chelsea-based Phoenix Charter Academy (PCA) serves at-risk students from Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, Revere, Winthrop, and Boston. The school’s mission is to give a caring but firm hand up with an eye toward not just keeping kids in school but also preparing them for rigorous academic work at college. PCA’s hybrid mission is the product of its founder, Beth Anderson, who comes to the school with long experience working with teen girls and at Boston’s standout MATCH School.

Taylor Armerding

Kerry should leave lending standards alone

/2 Comments/in , , , /by

Our compassionate Sen. John Kerry is at it again, in behalf of the demographic he professes to understand so well – the middle class. The multi-millionaire Massachusetts senator is complaining that the federal lending rules created to prevent another mortgage meltdown will prevent middle-class, credit-worthy borrowers from buying a home. What he dislikes in particular is a proposed regulation that would require some homebuyers to make a down payment of 20 percent to qualify for a low-interest loan. In a letter to Shaun Donovan, secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development; Federal Reserve chairman Ben S. Bernanke; and Sheila C. Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., Kerry wrote, “None of us — and none of you […]

Jim Stergios

Squishy jobs

/0 Comments/in , , /by

What to make from the latest jobs report? After the April jobs report which showed an increase of around 250,000 jobs, and expectations that the non-farm payroll would increase around 150-175,000 jobs, the creation of only 54,000 jobs in May is a huge disappointment — especially coming a full year after the Summer of Recovery. Of course, there are snarky responses, and lots of people I’ve spoken to this morning have focused on the fact that the hiring announcement from McDonald’s nominally constituted May’s entire job growth number. The more meaningful response is what we gave to Mark Mardell of BBC TV: There is just a ton of uncertainty out there. The economy’s growth rate is slowing, and we know […]

Jim Stergios

Mother Courage

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Earlier this week, I shared a couple of videos introducing the Chelsea-based Phoenix Charter Academy (PCA). PCA is unique in that it focuses on getting at-risk students back working at school, but also insists on high-quality academic achievement. The academic culture at PCA is critical to the school’s success, and in order to establish a culture of learning, there has to be a foundational behavioral culture of order, respect and rules. In order to get to that point, PCA seeks to provide a base of support for its students that will give them room to focus on academics. The goal is not just to stay in school, but to meet and beating academic and behavioral expectations. PCA’s in-school support ranges […]

Joshua Archambault

More Bad News for Governor’s Regulatory Regime for Payment Reform

/2 Comments/in , , /by

A Washington Post article today is sure to influence the debate in the beltway on reforming our health delivery system towards accountable care organizations (ACOs), one can only hope it will reach the leaders of the Commonwealth before they pass the Governor’s “phase II” payment reform legislation. ACOs are the skeleton that Governor Patrick is attempting to fuse his alternative payment methods with. ACOs are the hot concept in health policy circles, as the Obama Administration is rolling out new regulations to form ACOs for the Medicare population. Many experts believe that as the Medicare delivery system goes, so does the rest of the health care market. So the article brings to light many concerning devolpments that should influence the […]

Steve Poftak

Smaller, Fewer is Not Better

/2 Comments/in , /by

While the rest of the US created jobs after the 2001 recession, Massachusetts shrank. Understanding why is important if we want to avoid a ‘jobless recovery’ from the most recent recession. The above chart shows US jobs (thin black line) versus MA jobs (bold red line) starting in 2001. What you see is both dropping in response to the recession but the US economy comes back by 2005 and creates net new jobs. The Massachusetts economy never comes back far enough to reach early 2001 levels. Two connected factors explain a significant portion of our stagnation – Massachusetts is failing to create new businesses at the same rate it did in the ‘90s and the new businesses we manage to […]

Jim Stergios

If walls could speak

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Walk into a building and you can already tell a lot about an institution. An excellent teacher can be found in a building that screams stasis, but a culture of excellence in a school will not over time abide such a feeling of immobility. That’s why you can feel the energy in a school that works–and most often you can see it upon coming to an entrance, walking the hallways, and viewing the classroom walls. And walking through the section of Our Lady of Grace in Chelsea, home to Phoenix Charter Academy, the walls of the classrooms show serious purpose. Sure, the school does not have the level of resources that district schools get for facilities; but that’s part of […]

Taylor Armerding

Bob Haynes will leave labor worse than he found it

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Nobody should shed any tears for Bobby Haynes, the longtime president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, when he rides off this fall into the kind of gilded retirement he generally decries for private-sector CEOs – unless, of course, it is an $11-million package for the former CEO of a nonprofit health corporation on whose board Haynes is paid a cool $72,000 to sit. Nor should they give him any thanks. Haynes, who announced his retirement this week, is leaving labor worse than he found it. And not because public employee unions look to be “losing” a battle on Beacon Hill over health care benefits. It is because Haynes, described by the Boston Globe as a “tough-talking former iron worker,” is more […]