One of the more interesting items in the Boston Globe the last couple days has been a full-page ad from Neighborhood Health Plan. It appears to be one of those year-end, feel-good ads thanking the health plan’s subscribers for their support, but there’s probably a hidden message as well.
“At Neighborhood Health Plan, we know that health is what holds it all together,” the ad says. “Which is why, for more than 25 years, we have kept our promise. To give you — and all our members — access to the best care there is. As we welcome a new year, this commitment remains unwavering.”
Neighborhood Health Plan is a regular health insurer but it is best known for covering people covered by Medicaid, the state and federally funded insurance program for the poor and disabled, and some elderly. Neighborhood Health and the other insurers serving people on Medicaid have been losing a lot of money lately, and the ad appears to be designed to reassure customers that the company isn’t going anywhere.
The Globe’s Steve Syre reported earlier this month that Partners HealthCare, which owns Neighborhood Health, was looking for ways to stem losses at the health plan. That process, code-named Project Panther, was focusing on three options: boosting Medicaid reimbursements from the state, finding a new financial partner for the insurer, or selling the health plan.
The new Globe ads, along with the release of Partners’ year-end financials last week, seem to indicate that the hospital and physician network is sticking by Neighborhood Health. The ads themselves are full of reassuring platitudes, but the Partners financial statement strongly blames the plan’s losses on state regulators, who allegedly failed to set appropriate Medicaid rates and botched the initial rollout of the Affordable Care Act.
Partners reported its first operating loss in 15 years, largely because of losses at Neighborhood Health. But the defense of Neighborhood Health Plan in the Partners earning release and the appearance of the ads reassuring customers about the plan suggest the state’s largest health care network is not getting out of the insurance business.
—BRUCE MOHL
BEACON HILL
Lt. Gov.-elect Karyn Polito says the budget shortfall facing the new administration is due to spending and management problems, State House News reports.
The Globe’s Josh Miller has mini-profiles of a half dozen of the important new faces coming to Beacon Hill, includingCharlie Baker’s chief of staff, Steve Kadish, and presumed Senate President Stan Rosenberg’s top aide, Natasha Perez.
Next caller for the governor: Barack (formerly) of Somerville.
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
The Civil Service Commission ordered Braintree officials to place a black federal police officer at the top of the list for the next round of police hiring because it said he was unfairly bypassed despite being the highest-ranked candidate for an opening last year.
The Beverly City Council voted to spend $950,000 to purchase a 12-acre camp that belonged to the Girl Scouts of Eastern Massachusetts, the Salem News reports.
Fall River city councilors say they are looking to forge a closer relationship with Mayor-elect Sam Sutter after years of strained relations with departing Mayor Will Flanagan, ousted by voters in a recall election earlier this week.
A Boston community meeting turned tense as residents lit into law enforcement officials over the deaths of family members at police hands.
OLYMPICS
Organizers of the Boston Olympics bid have approached Lottery officials about the creation of a Lottery game as one possible source of revenue, CommonWealth reports. Keller@Large wants those Olympic athletes to stay off his damn lawn.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
Nebraska and Oklahoma challenge Colorado’s law legalizing marijuana sales in a lawsuit before the US Supreme Court, the Denver Post reports.
The House Republican who instigated the recent Elizabeth Warren–Citigroup showdown on Capitol Hill vows to insert more measures weakening financial regulations into spending bills. “We have a created a model,” Rep. Kevin Yoder tells Bloomberg. The Wall Street Journal examines the Democratic rift Warren is opening.
File under startling: The US is not prepared for a nuclear terrorist attack or a large scale natural disaster.
ELECTIONS
Marty Walsh is poised to break the single-year fundraising record for an incumbent Boston mayor, with more than $1.5 million already in his 2014 kitty.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Amazon withdrew from a state Economic Assistance Council meeting without explanation. Company officials were scheduled to present plans for a million-square-foot distribution complex in Fall River but local officials say the proposal is still on track.
The Atlantic asks whether a Hippocratic oath for bankers would improve behavior on Wall Street.
Shirley Leung says there might be something to this casino oversaturation thing after all.
EDUCATION
A state audit slammed Massachusetts charter schools and oversight by education officials, saying there is a lack of clarity in mission, no sharing of best practices, and lax collection of records and information.
U.S. News & World Report rounds up the highest and lowest in-state tuition of public colleges and universities around the country.
HEALTH CARE
Tufts Health Plan and two hospitals in the greater Worcester area are locked in a struggle over rates, the Telegram & Gazette reports.
Vermont drops a plan for single-payer health care, Vermont Public Radio reports.
If you’ve been following medical advice dispensed by Dr. Oz, you should probably stop. Now.
TRANSPORTATION
Uber, facing stiff fines for not complying with local laws, halts service in Portland, Oregon, Time reports.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
A State Police crime lab employee fails proficiency tests in several key areas, calling into question his work in a number of high-profile cases, the Salem News reports.
A brief pretrial appearance by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev draws Marathon bombing victims and conspiracy theory kooks to the Moakley courthouse. Tsarnaev’s lawyers request a new trial date.
MEDIA
The Globe’s Ideas section loses its editor to Politico and a writer to Slate.
Poynter offers up what it considers the best news story corrections of the year.
Actor George Clooney slams the media and Hollywood for their reaction to the Sony hack.
A number of Lynn residents appear in a multimedia project on immigrants that appeared in The New Yorker.
David Bernstein, writing at Boston magazine, asks, “What the hell happened to Boston.com?” Ben Edelman, the Harvard Business School professor at the center of the Boston.com storm of stories that ended in the suspension of the site’s deputy editor, offers his answer, telling the Herald the site’s pursuit of him was driven by a desire for web traffic, not accountability journalism.
