UHCEF Article of Interest

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The New Standard (click here for link to the original article)
Megan Tady
January 26, 2007

Less than a year after Massachusetts’s controversial healthcare initiative was first revealed, evidence is accumulating to bolster critics who said the system is faulty by design.

Members of a panel charged with implementing the Massachusetts “universal” healthcare plan redirected some insurers this week to make their premiums more affordable. But critics of the plan say it’s the government that needs to go back to the drawing board. (more…)

UHCEF Article of Interest

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Berkshire Eagle (click here for link to original article)
Editorial
January 24, 2007

The state’s new mandated health insurance plan has gotten favorable reviews in the early going, in particular from people earning 100 percent or less of the poverty level ($9,800 a year). As the program expands, however, unanticipated glitches are emerging, and the results of a study on the method many Americans are employing to deal with increasing health care costs testifies to the myriad problems of a system that requires an overhaul, not tinkering. (more…)

Click here for link to original blog post by Roy Poses, MD.
From the Health Care Renewal blog.

In Time to Heal, Kenneth Ludmerer traced the evolution, if that is the right word, of the academic medical center from a relatively “flat” organization dedicated to service and academics to a large, complex quasi-corporation. Ludmerer wrote:

The new hospital administrators assumed business titles (president or chief executive officer rather than superintendent or director), demanded and received corporate levels of compensation, and retained hordes of management consultants…. A corporate approach began to dominate the institutional culture of the academic medical center…. It became increasingly difficult to distinguish some academic medical centers from the for-profit hospital chains and HMOs they so often criticized. (more…)

New ConCon thread: debate continues on other amendments (+)
David on BlueMassGroup (click here for link to original blog thread)
Tue Jan 02, 2007 at 17:34:14 PM EST

They have now started debate on a motion to discharge the health care amendment from committee, which is a necessary precursor to voting on it. A 2/3 vote will be required to do this. It’ll be a short debate. Tolman has argued in favor of discharge. Here comes Sen. Moore arguing against discharge. (more…)

UHCEF Article of Interest

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Jim O’Sullivan and Priscilla Yeon
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JAN. 2, 2007….An effort to enshrine in the state constitution guarantees of affordable and comprehensive health coverage died in the Legislature Tuesday, with legislators reluctant to impose statutory prods on themselves while they experiment with a first-in-the-nation law.

Lawmakers voted, by a count of 101 to 92, to keep bottled in a special committee the citizen-driven amendment, which advocates said would have anchored the moves toward universal health care contained in a landmark reform law passed last year. (more…)