How the heck did I miss this? At the end of the State House News Service's email bulletin was this gem: The notion of raising taxes on businesses who can...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (1)
November 19, 2005 | Return on Community InvestmentLen Stewart of Cape Cod Works has a must-read post on how we must look at any health care reform: It's an investment in our community, which will bear real...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (5)
November 17, 2005 | Freep this poll!Boston Business Journal is hosting an online poll asking whether businesses should have to pay or play with respect to health care - that is, whether they should either have...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
How the (House) employer mandate worksAnother Greater Boston Interfaith Organization .pdf, drawn up in conjunction with the Business Leaders for Real Health Reform, describes the employer mandate thusly: The $160 million employer tax is eliminated....
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (1)
Health Care: Gut check for the GuvSo, Our Guv has decided to postpone his decision about whether to run for re-election until after the health care debate shakes out. Supposedly that makes him more relevant to...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 16, 2005 | Health care: GBIO's Senate vs. House comparisonThe Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO) has written up a nice comparison sheet (.pdf) between the House and Senate health care plans. The third column is apparently what GBIO plans...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (1)
And it's Illinois in the lead ...With today's news that Illinois has just enacted a program that will make affordable health insurance readily available to every child in the state, the pressure is (or should be)...
By David | Read Article | Comments (10)
November 15, 2005 | Healthy LinksSome useful health care links: HealthCareforMass.org discusses the proposed Health Care Constitutional Amendment. MassDefendHealthCare.org is the website for The Alliance to Defend Health Care (formerly the Ad Hoc Committee): Bringing...
By Bob | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 11, 2005 | Baker's half-dozenEarlier today, David did a terrific job of running down the six health care op-eds in the Globe today. I have nothing to add to David's takedown of the hapless...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
Six health care op-edsThe Globe published a nice collection of six short op-eds on health care today, each from a different perspective. The authors are Gerald Algere (a businessman and board member of...
By David | Read Article | Comments (7)
November 09, 2005 | Montigny tries to fix Senate planSenator Mark Montigny (D-New Bedford) has sponsored an amendment to the Senate health care bill expanding access to MassHealth. Increased access is, after all, the whole point of this exercise....
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (9)
November 08, 2005 | Hot + cold = lukewarmI was talking with a friend last night who reads the blog, and he asked, So, are you guys for or against the health care plan? And others have called...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (11)
Election day/RoundupElection day today: Get out and vote. Tell us what you see.***Here's Adam Reilly's burning questions on the Boston City Council race.***The health care juggernaut rumbles on: Trav has not...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (5)
November 07, 2005 | Globe on health care: Man bites dogSo the Globe breathlessly trumpets, above the fold today: Shake-up envisioned in health insurance: Higher deductibles seen possible for many. Holy crap! That's gonna suck! Better shut the whole thing...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (4)
November 05, 2005 | Pols show their true colors on health careThe health care issue is so big, and the stakes are so high, that it's the kind of issue on which politicians get to show what they're really made of,...
By David | Read Article | Comments (18)
November 04, 2005 | The Free Care Top 20!From a study last February, here are the Top 20 employers whose workers make use of the MassHealth or the Free Care Pool. In other words: They're not paying for...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (6)
House passes DiMasi-care; WBUR does good work this morningWBUR had two good things on Morning Edition today: An interview with Health Care for All's John McDonough on the basics of the health care problems and the bill just...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (7)
November 03, 2005 | "Remember your mission"Via a State House source, this State House News item on a speech given today by the Senate President:Senate President Robert Travaglini on Thursday morning admonished his fellow lawmakers to...
By David | Read Article | Comments (1)
Write or call your reps on health care - NOW!I emailed my rep this morning urging him to support employer pay or play in the House health care bill, and I got a very nice email back with this...
By David | Read Article | Comments (8)
November 02, 2005 | Telling omission by the GovernorHere's Our Guv addressing DiMasi's health care plan tonight:I think people are familiar with my positions as related to taxation. I don't want to see taxes rise. I want to...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
Mr. Speaker: stand your groundI'm echoing some of what Charley said, but just to be clear: there is absolutely no way I would consider supporting an individual mandate for health insurance if there is...
By David | Read Article | Comments (5)
"Neither"? No way.So after some uproar from the business community, House Speaker DiMasi admits a technical error (not minor, but literally technical) in his health care bill, and says he'll fix it...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
November 01, 2005 | Well, SOMEONE's paying for it...There's a point from the Globe's editorial today about the health care debate that really bears repeating, especially as we begin to hear resistance from some (though not all) business...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (4)
October 31, 2005 | House has released its health care billHere is the House health care bill (pdf). A couple of highlights (I haven't read the whole thing yet): Individual mandate is enforced by (1) a financial penalty of 50%...
By David | Read Article | Comments (8)
Employers are NOT universally opposed to "pay or play"Don't be fooled. To read the Globe articles discussing the House's health care bill, you would think that the business community is universally opposed to including a pay or play...
By David | Read Article | Comments (4)
October 30, 2005 | Initial reactions to House health care planHere's my quick-n-dirty first take on the House's plan, to be unveiled tomorrow am. See this post for the sections to which I'm referring. A. The expansion of MassHealth is...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
Summary of Health Access Reform BillTomorrow, 10/31, the MA House Joint Committee on Health Care Financing will approve its version of health care reform. Here's the Globe's preview. (Expect a lot of trick or treat,...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (2)
It's contagious!Good gravy. We're not satisified with our own screwed-up health care system -- now we're actually exporting it:...Experts questioned the priorities of Washington's $1-billion rebuilding plan, which has focused on...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 28, 2005 | They get lettersA letter from former Massachusetts Medicaid commissioner James J. Callahan Jr., in yesterday's Globe:AN INDIVIDUAL mandate for healthcare coverage is bad public policy because it assumes that the provision of...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (4)
October 27, 2005 | Health Care: What's your bottom line?So, with health care reform (or reform) apparently barrelling down the pike, we always knew the devil was going to be in the details. And now, all stakeholders will find...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (4)
Senator Barrios talks health careMonday afternoon we were fortunate to have a conference call with State Senator Jarrett Barrios (D-Cambridge) about the ongoing health care debate, and the various ways the state might ensure...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (5)
October 26, 2005 | Reminder: Health Care rally at State House tomorrowA reminder: you can make your voice heard for ambitious health care reform tomorrow at the State House at noon. This is in support of the MassACT initiative, which would...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 23, 2005 | No unfunded mandates!Lynne, of the excellent blog Left in Lowell, left a comment over at the HCFA blog that I think deserves to be rebroadcast. It sums up exactly why I think...
By David | Read Article | Comments (3)
October 22, 2005 | Q: How do you get young creative people to leave Massachusetts?A: Force them to buy health insurance if they want to live here. House Speaker Sal DiMasi has in large part signed on to the Mitt Romney plan for addressing...
By David | Read Article | Comments (11)
October 19, 2005 | Health Care: All eyes on usHey, this is cool: Joshua Kendall's nifty, elegant article in the Globe on the weird history of our employment-based health care system (Why is healthcare tied to the workplace?) has...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (4)
October 18, 2005 | National disgraceIf you weren't mad enough about our government's response to Katrina or the state of our national health care non-system, see this article from the LA Times (reg. required but...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
October 12, 2005 | Action: Call today to support health care reformSorry for such late notice: If you can, call your state Reps and Senators today to demand significant health care reform. This is an action in conjunction with the MassACT...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
October 01, 2005 | Mitt's Olde Cheese EmporiumYou know the Monty Python skit where John Cleese walks into a cheese shop, asks Michael Palin for dozens of different kinds of cheese, only to find there's actually no...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (1)
WonkNot makes the GlobeI was reading this article about kids losing their health care due to a change in computer systems in the Globe yesterday, and saw a familiar name towards the end:''It's...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
Signing up at Oktoberfest, Harvard SquareIf you're planning on going to the Oktoberfest in Harvard Square tomorrow, keep an eye out for folks in royal blue GBIO (Greater Boston Interfaith Organization) t-shirts, collecting signatures for...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 28, 2005 | Patrick backs ACTThis is welcome news:Democratic gubernatorial candidate Deval Patrick will deliver a speech today endorsing a plan [The Health Access and Affordability Act, written by Health Care for All] to establish...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (13)
September 24, 2005 | Stories from the Health Care front: #1Here's the first of a hopefully longer series of stories about negotiating the treacherous waters of health care in MA. We've gotten some personal stories in some of the comment...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (0)
September 23, 2005 | "Uninsured in Massachusetts": We need your story.(UPDATE: The first story is up. Send in your own!) Remember last October? No, not that small matter of an election, I mean the Red Sox winning the World Series....
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
September 22, 2005 | Interview with John McDonough of Health Care For AllWe're very pleased to present the following lengthy interview with John McDonough, Executive Director of Health Care For All. John probably knows more about the issues involved in the ongoing...
By David | Read Article | Comments (7)
September 21, 2005 | MassACT needs people who actbut I don't mean Dustin Hoffman... Let's be honest: Most folks aren't crazy about ballot initiatives, not even a lot of the folks who are getting signatures. I don't like...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (5)
September 20, 2005 | Signing onIf you go to a supermarket, farmer's market or other public agora this weekend and next, you will likely see folks asking for signatures to put various acts on the...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (2)
Dramatis personae for the health care showThis is an introduction to the various players on the MA health care scene. Note the two-pronged strategy by the coalition of groups led by Health Care for All: Legislation...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (5)
September 19, 2005 | "Uninsured in America": Sacrificing the bodyWes of Walk in Brain is doing a book club of the blogs this week on Uninsured in America: by Susan Starr Sered and Rushika Fernandopulle. I thought I'd chime...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (3)
Reading list for health care weekThis is something of a repeat of an earlier post, but in light of Health Care Week on the Blogs, it's timely. This is a brief list of things I've...
By Charley on the MTA | Read Article | Comments (2)
