Summer 2012

Summer 2012

Shifting alliances

Shifting alliances

the american medical Association, the venerable lobby organization for doctors, was for years a reliable Republican-leaning voice on big health care issues. For much of the past decade, however, the organization seemed to be on a drift to the left. First, it endorsed the Patients’ Bill of Rights guaranteeing patient protections against insurance companies. Then(...)

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Rumble in the park

Rumble in the park

The nonprofit group formed to operate and maintain Boston's Greenway is being threatened by a political fight over who should fund it

  Richard Davey, the state secretary of transportation, wants to wean the Greenway off public funds.  state transportation secretary Richard Davey darts across Atlantic Avenue, lays down his umbrella, and settles under the roof of the Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion. It’s a raw, wet day that feels more like March than June, but even with the(...)

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Cerberus's health care play

Cerberus’s health care play

The owner of the for-profit Steward Health Care is taking on Boston's big teaching hospitals

  Illustration by Yuta Onoda. Chris Hopey, the president of Merrimack College, brought an intriguing proposal late last year to his board of trustees: Steward Health Care, the upstart, for-profit hospital chain that is challenging some of the biggest players in the Massachusetts health care industry, wanted to transfer Carney Hospital in Dorchester to the(...)

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Not adding up

Not adding up

Two decades after ed reform promised a level playing field among poor and affluent communities, Massachusetts is again a state of haves and have-nots

After CommonWealth went to press, the state budget was finalized. The Senate proposal for a Foundation Budget Review Commission, described in the final paragraphs of the story, was not agreed to by the House.   Illustration by Richard Mia. orange, a small town of 7,800 along the Millers River in Franklin County, is exactly the(...)

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Risky business

Risky business

When it comes to cleaning up a mess at the former Medfield State Hospital, can the state police itself?

Correction: The story says a second budget amendment proposed by Sen. James Timilty would require the Division of Capital Asset Management to clean up the former hospital site so it could be used without any restrictions. The amendment, which was subsequently signed into law, actually requires DCAM to review its cleanup plan and then report(...)

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Glove, glove me do

Odds are one of the four Republican state senators in Massachusetts has a better chance of getting one of his bills passed than he does of catching a foul ball at a Major League Baseball game. Unless that senator is Robert Hedlund. The 11-term incumbent from Wey­mouth is a magnet when it comes to foul(...)

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Changes in laws keep teen drivers safer

Changes in laws keep teen drivers safer

for most teens, obtaining a drivers’ license means newfound freedom and independence. For many decades, it also meant something more sobering: a higher risk than any other age group that they would die on the road. But new statistics indicate that risk is diminishing. Teen driver fatalities have fallen to a record low in Massa­chu­setts(...)

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