USUALLY SUMMERTIME is not chock full of key health care developments and related news stories. Yes, there is always the strategic late August regulatory filings from our hospitals, where annual […]
Health Care
Posted inState House News Service, The Download
As the Globe churns
The newspaper industry is volatile enough because of outside pressures that stability at the top is a requirement to ensure as smooth a ride as possible in navigating the shifting […]
Posted inState House News Service, The Download
Hingham drama
For a small, toney town, Hingham generates an awful lot of news. The latest comes in Sunday’s Boston Globe with the recounting of a suicide by a distraught 26-year-old man […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Getting to yes on MassHealth
MASSACHUSETTS HAS A unique culture when it comes to health care. Over the last quarter century, we have seen the business, provider, payer, consumer, and academic sectors come together to […]
Posted inHealth Care
Deregulated health care not the answer
THE UNITED STATES has by far the most expensive health care system in the world. We spent $3.35 trillion, almost 18 percent of GDP and more than $10,000 per person, […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Health payment disparity affects labor talks
THE US SENATE on Tuesday delayed debate on its version of changes to the Affordable Care Act. No one knows exactly what the future holds for health care, but Gov. […]
Posted inHealth Care, Politics, State House News Service, The Download
Getting Obama out of Obamacare
It really shouldn’t be this hard, should it? When one party has the White House and both chambers of Congress, passing legislation and fulfilling promises should be a snap, one would […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion, Politics
5 takeaways from Baker’s health reform
PHASE 2 OF THE BAKER ADMINISTRATION’S ambitious health reform agenda emerged this past week. It contains good and smart proposals – and worrisome ones needing attention. Phase 1 is an […]
Posted inHealth Care, Politics, The Download
How a health care bill becomes a law
While all eyes yesterday were on the Senate hearing where Attorney General Jeff Sessions was testifying, some actual legislating is taking place in Washington — or so we are led […]
Posted inHealth Care, Politics
House guts voter-approved pot law
THE MASSACHUSETTS HOUSE will unveil a measure Wednesday that completely overhauls the voter-approved referendum legalizing recreational marijuana while also moving oversight of medical marijuana under the same regulatory umbrella. About […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
What your pharmacist can’t tell you
I’VE BEEN AN INDEPENDENT PHARMACIST for 37 years and during that time I have gotten to know many patients. In some cases, I know quite a bit about their families, […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion, Politics
Warren: GOP trying to ram through health care bill
Sen. Warren sent the following message to her supporters on Friday. I LEARNED SOME SCARY NEWS yesterday: the Senate Republicans are going to try to repeal the Affordable Care Act […]
Posted inOpinion, Politics
Raise the tobacco sales age to 21
MANY PEOPLE ARE SURPRISED TO LEARN that tobacco use remains the leading cause of preventable illness and premature death in Massachusetts and across the country, despite the strides we have […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
The elephant in the lab
An op-ed in today’s Globe by two leaders of the region’s biomedical community is as interesting for what it doesn’t say as what it does. The presidents of Vertex Pharmaceuticals […]
Posted inHealth Care
Clawbacks threaten mental health services
IMAGINE BEING WORRIED sick, struggling to find a mental health clinician to treat your 12-year-old child who is so anxious that he has not been able to go to school […]
Posted inHealth Care
Steward, physician group swap fraud charges
ONE OF STEWARD HEALTH CARE SYSTEM’S largest physician groups has filed a fraud and breach of contract suit for as much as $60 million against the for-profit hospital chain, triggering […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion, Politics
Baker’s claim of soaring Medicaid rolls is faulty
WITH MUCH FANFARE last January, the Baker administration sounded the alarm that the Medicaid rolls were soaring because individuals were dropping their employer coverage and choosing instead to enroll in […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
In some cases, let the machines take over
IN MY FIELD, the lost art of listening is vital to greater learning and understanding. As a doctor, I’ve spent more than two decades listening closely to better understand when […]
Posted inHealth Care
Amgen offering money-back guarantee
Amgen, a California-based biopharmaceutical company, is offering a money-back guarantee to Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and any of its members who use the company’s expensive cholesterol-lowering drug Repatha and fail […]
Posted inHealth Care, Opinion
Moving beyond health cost targets
IN LATE MARCH, the board of the Health Policy Commission voted unanimously to leave the 2018 cost growth benchmark for total state health care expenditures at 3.1 percent. This target […]
Posted inHealth Care
Death of a cancer lab
FEW PLACES HAVE the resources and brain power to match Boston when it comes to biomedical research, including the search for effective ways to treat and prevent cancer. Internationally renowned […]
Posted inHealth Care
Red states dodge a Medicaid bullet
REPUBLICANS IN WASHINGTON couldn’t cobble together enough votes in March from their own party to repeal and replace Obamacare. President Trump learned that health care is more complicated than he […]
Posted inHealth Care
Bending the Medicaid cost curve
IN A WILDLY uncertain national health care environment, something new, audacious, and risky is happening in MassHealth, the Medicaid program that provides health coverage to 1.9 million people who are […]
Posted inHealth Care
Big Pharma hides costs with bait and switch
THE ADS FOR high-end prescription drugs seem ubiquitous. Invokana, Xarelto, Abilify, and Humira are just a few names familiar to anyone with a television. The drugs are some of the […]