Blog: Healthcare Transparency Archives

Valuing Life-Saving Drugs: What is the Price of Life and Who Decides?

June 8, 2021

Hubwonk host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute visiting fellow Dr. Bill Smith about Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALY) standards, and the ways in which so-called objective cost-containing strategies use expert opinion to determine the value of a life and thereby disadvantage the elderly, disabled, and those with less common vulnerabilities to disease.

Massachusetts Should Disclose More Information about Its Recent Reduction in the Official Count of Long-term Care Deaths

April 27, 2021

The public -- particularly in Massachusetts, where COVID-19’s toll on elders has been so great -- has a right to know how many deaths occurred in state-regulated eldercare facilities, and how that compares to the total number of deaths. But the state's new counting standard clouds this information, and should be corrected or at least disclosed.

Doctor Heal Thyself: Insider’s Prescription For Healthcare Reform

April 6, 2021

Host Joe Selvaggi talks with surgeon and New York Times bestselling author Dr. Marty Makary about the healthcare reform themes in The Price We Pay, the 2020 Business Book of the Year. The discussion covers the value of price transparency, provider accountability, and performance information to drive better medical outcomes and improve doctor and patient satisfaction.

Pioneer Institute’s 2021 Government Transparency Resolutions: Sunshine Week Edition

March 16, 2021

As it does each year, Pioneer shares the resolutions it hopes state leaders will adopt to bring government actions into better focus and invigorate our democracy with heightened public engagement. As the late Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis noted, “sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient policeman.”

Getting Nursing Home Care Right

October 8, 2020

Pioneer Institute has long recognized that seniors deserve the best of care and that innovative policy solutions are necessary to ensure that this population enjoys a high quality of life in their later years. In the 1990s, early 2000s and most recently in 2017, the Institute dedicated Better Government Competition topics to policy issues related to aging in America. Our goal each time was to find solutions and to take advantage of new innovations that would improve the quality of life and care for the elderly.

HHS COVID Funding Tracker

August 3, 2020

As of July, the Feds have distributed $86.7 billion to medical providers, of which $2.3 billion came to Massachusetts. Pioneer’s new HHS COVID-19 Funding app shows who and how much, from the $1 sent to American Current Care of Massachusetts, to the $418,034,675 sent to the MA Department of Public Health. We also break down the distribution by city or town.