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Connecting with small businesses?

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State House News Service (subscription required) reports that the Commonwealth Connector, the state authority that oversees the health care exchange envisioned in the 2006 reform, is “launch[ing] a new health insurance product designed for businesses with 50 or fewer employees.” That’s fast. Pioneer’s report, Drawing Lessons, which compared the Utah and Massachusetts “exchanges” found that, in author Amy Lischko’s words, “Some decisions made while implementing the exchange model in Massachusetts, for example, have meant that the Connector has not met the needs of small employers in Massachusetts well.” Small businesses wanting to know more, can go to www.MAhealthconnector.org, or call Connector customer service at 877-623-6765. And, good on you, Dr. Kingsdale. We’re pleased to see it and will look over […]

Why Race to the Middle? First-Class State Standards Are Better than Third-Class National Standards

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First-Class State Standards Are Better than Third-Class National Standards Author(s): Ze’ev Wurman and Sandra Stotsky — Publication date: 2010-02-23 Category: Education Abstract: The case for national standards rests on more than the need to equalize academic expectations for all students by remedying the uneven and often deplorable quality of most state standards and tests. The case also rests on the urgent need to increase academic achievement for all students. In mathematics and science in particular, we require much higher levels of achievement than our students now demonstrate for this country to remain competitive in the global economy. These goals are not compatible at the secondary school level, and the tensions they create are not easily resolved. For example, although the […]

Arne Duncan goes DC

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There was/is the big push to centralize health care. Now centralize academic standards? Yesterday, speaking to the National Governors Association President Obama made it clear that he now is ready to open up a second front in centralizing authority within the federal government. When he originally proposed improving academic standards, the President promised a “state-generated” set of common standards that states would adopt voluntarily. Yesterday, the façade of voluntary adoption fell, and instead President Obama and US Education Secretary Duncan made clear that they would now tie Title I funds for K-12 schools to coerce states to adopt the standards proposed by the Common Core State Standard Initiative. So, essentially, the federal government has decided that it needs a takeover […]

That Didn't Take Long

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I heard it for the first time last night — “Benedict Brown”. And read the comments for yourself on Senator Brown’s facebook page. Its going to be a tough few weeks for our junior Senator as the dissonance between his national profile and political reality (particularly the local kind) get reconciled.

Legislature Skips Plan Design

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The Legislature is rolling out a “Municipal Relief Act” today, shepherded by Committee Chairs Representative Paul Donato and Senator Jamie Eldridge. Unless I’ve missed some grand strategic plan to insert plan design on the floor, this Act is an embarrassment. Everyone agrees that healthcare costs are killing local governments. By my estimation, its gone from roughly 6% of local budgets to over 12% over the last ten years — no other municipal department is growing like that. One potential avenue to controlling healthcare costs is joining the state employee’s insurance pool, the GIC, but many municipalities either object to that or don’t think it will save money. The next option then is to give municipal managers greater control over health […]