Public Program Reform

The Middle Cities Initiative seeks to help the Commonwealth's older cities, which face economic, demographic, and political challenges. These challenges cover a wide range of issues—entrenched political cultures, significant infrastructure costs, underperforming schools, struggling retail and manufacturing sectors, crime, and poorly targeted state programs. The Initiative's goal is to develop and disseminate concrete policies to help the Middle Cities grow.

Sustainable healthcare should always involve an accountable partnership between the payor and the third party insurance administrator. The Wellness Health Incentive Payment (WHIP) Program facilitates better health/wellness outcomes by holding health insurance vendors fiscally responsible for health and wellness activity. The WHIP rewards or penalizes health insurance administrative vendors according to the vendor's wellness activity performance against nationally recognized health and wellness standards.

The horrifying spectacle of the Minnesota bridge collapse has prompted a national reevaluation of the condition of our public infrastructure. In Massachusetts, two recent reports have found a multi-billion dollar backlog of deferred maintenance.

The Massachusetts Estuaries Project, through the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth School of Marine Science and Technology (SMAST), supports the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in the development and implementation of policies to protect nitrogen-sensitive coastal embayments. The Project collects data and develops models to manage and restore the 89 embayment systems that comprise the coastline of southeastern Massachusetts. The Project encompasses new technologies, regulatory approaches and funding mechanisms to reduce the costs of conducting estuarine restoration.

This paper will review Statement 45’s potential impact on governments and review existing disclosures in financial reports as well as bond offering statements. The paper will discuss the Statement’s impact on budgets and governmental operations, including collective bargaining. Funding options under Statement 45 will be detailed, including the advantages and disadvantages of irrevocable trusts and OPEB bonds.

This study analyzes data from hospitals in six states, including Massachusetts, to compare the cost and quality of secondary care for under-65, privately insured patients in Academic Health Centers (AHCs) and non-AHC or community hospitals.

Over the course of the past decade, thousands of organizations have used business process redesign and information technology to get to know their customers well, and they have used that information to do a better job of meeting their customers’ needs. Five years ago, anyone who had a checking account, a mortgage, an auto loan, and a credit card with the same financial institution might as well have been dealing with four different companies. Today, more often than not, that individual gets one statement each month that consolidates his or her entire relationship with that financial institution. The bank knows the extent of its relationship with each customer, and its customers can manage their accounts and loans in a unified, coordinated manner.

The analysis presented in the paper suggests areas in which caution must be exercised to assure that community benefits provided by nonprofits are preserved in a post-conversion environment, and that full value is realized and appropriately redirected. Nothing in the analysis indicates that nonprofit to for-profit conversion should be barred from consideration in Massachusetts.