MY OLDER SISTER Liza died on October 25, 2020, when all her struggles came to a head; no single factor was to blame. She did not treat or really acknowledge her mental illness. She misused drugs and alcohol. She and her wife had divorced a few years earlier, and there were rifts between her and […]
Health Care
Posted inHealth Care
Senate taking another shot at drug pricing legislation
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE A BILL TARGETING drug costs that the Senate plans to take up next week would cap the cost of insulin at $25 a month for consumers, one of a series of measures that a senator behind the legislation said are aimed at boosting access and accountability in the pharmaceutical system. Sen. […]
Posted inState House News Service, Uncategorized
COVID spending bill grows to $101m, passes within hours
A $55 MILLION COVID-related spending bill ballooned into a $101 million bill under an agreement reached between House and Senate negotiators, which lawmakers sent to Gov. Charlie Baker’s desk just hours after the compromise was announced. Initially, the House had proposed spending $55 million on expanding COVID testing sites, increasing vaccination rates among children, and […]
Posted inEducation
Top Baker aides urge colleges to lead Mass. into endemic
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE TWO BAKER ADMINISTRATION Cabinet secretaries late last week urged college and university presidents to eschew strict campus-wide COVID-19 protocols and instead put their institutions at the forefront of the state’s transition of the pandemic “into an endemic, a highly contagious virus that is manageable and allows us to regain a sense […]
Posted inHealth Care
Vaccine mandate prompts exit of 1,013 state workers
MORE THAN 1,000 state employees have now left state government rather than comply with the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. The Massachusetts executive branch vaccine mandate went into effect October 17, but actual firings have been spread out over several months as state agencies reviewed waiver requests, handled appeals, and meted out suspensions, which are a […]
Posted inOpinion
Drug discount program padding hospital profits
IMPROVING VULNERABLE populations’ access to medicines is clearly important. But something is amiss when a program that is supposed to improve access to healthcare has turned into a cash cow for hospitals. Yet, that is what has happened to the obscure 340B drug discount program. Too many hospitals across Massachusetts and the US are qualifying […]
Posted inThe Download
Tracing the origins of the Mass General Brigham fight
Paul Hattis of the Lown Institute and John McDonough of the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University trace the origins of the fight over Mass General Brigham’s $2.3 billion expansion plan back to the 1990s. At that time, Mass General Brigham didn’t even exist. It was known then as Partners HealthCare, which […]
Posted inHealth Care
Tracing the origins of the Mass General Brigham fight
PAUL HATTIS of the Lown Institute and John McDonough of the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University trace the origins of the fight over Mass General Brigham’s $2.3 billion expansion plan back to the 1990s. At that time, Mass General Brigham didn’t even exist. It was known then as Partners HealthCare, which […]
Posted inOpinion
Telehealth works, don’t mess it up
COVID-19 HAS ALTERED all of our lives in devastating ways, and has fundamentally changed healthcare in the United States. One silver lining is a change that has dramatically improved healthcare for millions of patients: telehealth. However, these convenient, essential, and sometimes life-saving visits we have all come to rely on are under threat if legislators […]
Posted inOpinion
Moment of truth for state’s health cost benchmark
A MOMENT OF TRUTH is now here for Mass General Brigham, as well as for the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, the Department of Public Health, and for health insurance premium payers across the state. The immediate issue coming to a head by March is whether DPH will allow Mass General Brigham to further expand its […]