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Unresolved Safety Net Hospital Issues
/1 Comment/in Blog, Blog: Healthcare, Healthcare /byMr. Keefe, First, thank you for taking the time to read my post and comment. There is no question that you have played a significant leadership role in health care reform both as a CEO of a major integrated healthcare delivery system, and now as the chair of the board for the Massachusetts Hospital Association. It is clear that your intent is to advocate for the best interest of your organization. However, I did want to offer a few comments in response: Recent Actions: Credit is due for moving forward more aggressively to reduce costs than other organizations in similar situations. I understand CHA attempted to strike a balance and find cuts in different ways, which have not always resolved […]
Roslindale Parade Update
/3 Comments/in Blog, News /byAs regular readers know, I’m a big fan of parades (see here and here). Once again, I’ve tried my best to divine political trends from watching this year’s marchers: 1) Kudos to City Councillor Rob Consalvo for both marching in the parade and for sponsoring the Boston Crusaders Senior Marching Band. Other Hyde Park politicians (looking at you Rep. Scaccia) should be so thoughtful about the Roslindale portion of their districts. 2) Absolutely no statewide officeholders marched in the parade or participated in any way. Tsk, Tsk. 3) Of Boston’s four at-large city councilors, only John Connolly marched (and got the standard strong positive reaction). It’s basically a homegame for Councillor Connolly but it’s surprising that no one else participated. […]
Next Step in Reform: Cost Control
/1 Comment/in Blog, Blog: Healthcare, Healthcare /byThe President & CEO of Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM), an employer association of 6,000 Bay State businesses and institutions, has an interesting piece in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette today that sets the goal line for reform. “We will know the reform works when the same employers who supported a 2006 reform that expanded coverage but did not control costs no longer suffer a sick feeling in the stomach every time they sit down to review premium increases with their health plans. We will know the reform works when employees no longer wonder whether they can afford rising deductibles. And we will know the reform works when the cost of health insurance ceases to be a structural impediment to […]
Causes of Boston's Bus Problems
/2 Comments/in Blog, News /byToday’s Globe has an op-ed decrying the problems with the buses taking kids to the Boston Public Schools — they’ve been plagued with delays since school started. The article points out two potential causes of the problem — issues implementing a new routing software system and resistance/noncompliance by the drivers union. (Given that their union has seen fit to traffic in the coarsest forms of racially-charged attacks in the past, it can’t be ruled out.) Other issues, that might not be obvious to non-residents are: 1) Broad eligibility: Any elementary school child over a mile away from their school (or with an intervening major thoroughfare between them and school) is eligible. That’s a lot of kids. 2) Huge coverage area: […]
Feds giving a safety net to Massachusetts’s safety net hospitals?
/1 Comment/in Blog, Blog: Healthcare, Healthcare, News /byTwo of the most prominent “safety net” hospitals in Massachusetts are facing sizable budget gaps again this year, and are turning to the feds to bail them out. Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) have long received, in part because of their emphasis on the under- and uninsured, greater political assistance in propping up their balance sheets. The desired Medicaid waiver amendment would be worth $86 million this year for CHA and $90 million for BMC. These institutions play an important role in Massachusetts, but the new slug of federal dollars undermines the viability of Massachusetts health reform by introducing new annual bailouts. A key accomplishment of the Massachusetts experiment was a deal to leverage public money […]
Ed Glaeser slips on a banana peel
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byEd Glaeser is a brilliant economist and someone who cares deeply about local, state and federal policies that impact housing, segregation, crime, the growth of cities and the role of innovation in reviving urban landscapes. He has done a ton of work with us, spoken at Pioneer events, and we look to him as a leading intellectual — as does just about everybody. All that throat-clearing is necessary because in today’s Globe, Ed slipped on a banana peel. Looking to weigh in with a timely piece on what is becoming a key issue in the gubernatorial debate — the standards and MCAS debate — Ed makes four assertions that are questionable at best and wrong at worst. Here’s wrong assertion […]
Can Big City Superintendents Fix the Schools?
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Education, Blog: School Choice, Jim Stergios, Related Education Blogs /byWhen Adrian Fenty was elected as the mayor of Washington DC, he worked relentlessly to gain control of the DC school board. After all, the DC public schools cost so much more than your average public school and they were among the nation’s worst performers. In 2007 he appointed Michelle Rhee as the Public School Chancellor, who immediately took some of the toughest actions one could imagine to turn around the schools, including mass principal and teacher firings, numerous school closures, strict accountability measures, and strong outreach to recruit new energetic teachers and lots more foundation funding for her school (and really district) “turnaround” efforts. Above are just some of the magazine cover and lead article pictures of Michelle Rhee. […]
The Texas standards controversy: You decide
/0 Comments/in Blog, Blog: Common Core, Blog: Education, Jim Stergios, Related Education Blogs /byGilbert King notes in his blog that Ironically, it was textbooks that brought Thurgood Marshall to Texas more than sixty years ago. Heman Marion Sweatt was an African American mail carrier in Houston who wanted to become a lawyer, but was denied admission to the University of Texas law school in 1946 on the sole basis of his race. With the NAACP representing him, Sweatt sued the University of Texas on the grounds that the state had no law school that would admit blacks. That’s because Thurgood Marshall went on to represent Sweatt, seeing in the case an opportunity to take up a civil rights case that could have broad impact on the law of the land. This spring, after […]
Keeping MA Competitive
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byPioneer and our partners at the Mass High Tech Council are kicking off a project today that will examine the tax environment in Massachusetts, how job creation has behaved over the same period, and how we stack up against competitor states. The project begins with a policy brief that ‘sets the table‘, examining Massachusetts in context with other states. Over the next week, I’ll be presenting data from the report on the blog. Please take a look at the piece and stay tuned for more.
My AM 8 Thoughts on Yesterday's Election
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /by1) Suzanne Bump’s resounding victory over Guy Glodis and Mike Lake has to be the surprise of the night. She came within 3000 votes of winning an outright majority. 2) Glodis only won his stronghold of Worcester by 1,359 votes (with pretty light turnout). Almost makes one wonder if someone in the firmament of Worcester political stars did not really deliver for Glodis. 3) On the topic of not delivering the vote, Stephen Murphy only beat Grossman by ~4000 votes in Boston. So, Murphy can manage 50,000 votes in the city in an off-year council race (where voters get four choices to be fair), yet less than half that in the Treasurer’s race. 4) I’m guessing that Suzanne Bump was […]
A picture tells one story about the recession
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byCertainly, the pictures that matter most in the current recession are those of individuals trying to make ends meet and trying to find a way to stay afloat. That said, an image from our upcoming paper on the state’s business climate — and specifically on our tax competitiveness relative to other states — struck me as important to share. Massachusetts’ economy has been mauled by the global recession, though several observers have noted that, during the recession, Massachusetts is faring better than many other states. The image below depicts the overall number of unemployed in the state from December 2007 to July 2009. (Source) If doubling the unemployed population is better, then we are really in deep trouble. The image […]
The Tom Menino Endorsement Continuum
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byGovernor Patrick is receiving Mayor Tom Menino’s endorsement this afternoon. It should not be surprising that a sitting Democratic governor would be endorsed by the sitting Democratic mayor of the state’s largest city and capital. But the relationship between Patrick and Menino has been frosty at times. As an example, recall the GOV’s effort to fire Dan Grabauskas, who got a full vote of confidence from Menino at the time. Again, take the names out and consider the roles — Democratic mayor extends himself on behalf of Republican bureaucrat in opposition to sitting Democratic governor. More recently, when asked to grade the GOV’s performance, Menino responded by giving him a ‘C’ for the first three years and a ‘B+’ more […]
Oddity in Latest GOV Poll
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byState House News Service (despite its small size, per the Globe) has a new Governor’s poll out this AM. What I’m having trouble reconciling is Charlie Baker’s small name identification and his vote total. His favorable/unfavorable ratings break out to be 21% to 17%, with the remainder being “no opinion/never heard of”. Yet he grabs 28% of the vote. What does this mean? It has to mean with people who profess to have ‘no opinion’ or have never heard of Baker are picking him as their candidate. Or people who view unfavorably are voting for him. Either way, that’s strange.
Revenue sharing for cities is a non-starter
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Economic Opportunity, News, Related Education Blogs /byIn today’s Boston Herald Jay Fitzgerald penned a tough article on the remarks Eric Rosengren (President/CEO of the Boston Fed made at a meeting of the Fed’s Board of Governors in DC on REO and Vacant Property Strategies for Neighborhood Stabilization. (REOs are properties that a lender takes back because of a foreclosure, where no one bought the property at a foreclosure sale process.) Eric Rosengren’s presentation was framed around the slide deck linked here. There are many problems with the case Eric is making, not least of which is that it entirely ignores the generous state commitment to education which pores $4.5 billion into our cities and towns, with a disproportionate amount going to our cities. Some communities, like […]
Ed Reform going soft
/0 Comments/in Blog, Related Education Blogs /byThe MCAS is different from most other state tests. It is a high-stakes test for all students; its being a graduation requirement underscored the seriousness of purpose, and its being for all students meant that we would not allow a good system for some and a less good system for others. After all, that is what we had before 1993. Success on the MCAS test correlates very well with success on national and international assessments. The better you do on MCAS, the better you are likely to do in college and in your career. You can’t say that about most state tests, which are all over the place in terms of correlation. So the MCAS is a good test. (There […]