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American Citizenship, Healthcare
December 2, 2010

Decrease Insurance Premiums or You’ll Be Sleeping with the Fishes

A study released this morning may lay out the possible future of state intervention in premium increases for health insurance. The Kaiser Family Foundation examined the different methods by which each state reviews proposed health insurance rates. They found: Many states use...
Healthcare
November 22, 2010

Massachusetts Health Care Transparency: Bright Enough Spotlight?

Massachusetts officials published online this week a database containing “payments drug companies and medical device makers made to hospitals, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health care providers in the state.” This is a move in the right direction for transparency, but I...
Healthcare
November 16, 2010

Pioneer Senior Fellow on PBS's NewsHour

Pioneer’s Senior Fellow on Health Care, Amy Lischko, was interviewed on PBS’s NewsHour for a series on the reform law here in Massachusetts. I personally think the report glosses over the connection between increased costs for small businesses and policy decisions by...
Healthcare
November 12, 2010

Health Care Costs Crushing States-- Is the Solution to Drop out of Medicaid?

The headline says it all. “States’ Woes Spur Medicaid Drop-Out Talk” An article in The New York Times today highlights the serious consideration by at least a dozen states to withdraw from the Medicaid program. Supporters are arguing for either a state...
Healthcare
November 8, 2010

Raining Cats and Dogs: Massachusetts Local Budgets

A Boston Globe headline today seems to imply cities and towns are being irresponsible by saving, yet many local officials appear to be anticipating dark clouds ahead. As Jim Stergios, executive director of Pioneer is quoted in the article, “They [Massachusetts communities]...
Healthcare
November 1, 2010

Health Care in the Mid-terms: What the Polls really tell us

Trying to read the tea leaves of poll numbers on the general public’s opinion of Obamacare has been especially confusing this election cycle.  Either 70% still want a public option or 70% deride Obamacare. Pundits gladly spin these numbers in support of...
Healthcare
October 29, 2010

American as baseball, apple pie and primary care doctors?

Harvard Medical School recently announced an anonymous gift of $30 million to create a center to “transform primary care medicine.” What I was hoping to read next was a vision for a metamorphosis of the role of primary care doctors. Instead the...
Healthcare
October 19, 2010

ObamaCare blowback

Great piece in the Boston Globe titled “ObamaCare blowback” by Jeff Jacoby outlining the litany of actions that opponents of the national health care law have highlighted to express concerns about new regulations. It certainly has been interesting to watch how the bill has played...
Healthcare
October 5, 2010

Unresolved Safety Net Hospital Issues

Mr. 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,...
Healthcare
September 29, 2010

Next Step in Reform: Cost Control

The 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...