Tinker Ready's blog
Every week, veteran healthcare reporter Tinker Ready rounds up the latest news for MassDevice. This week, she takes a look at Ted Kennedy passing the healthcare baton to Chris Dodd, overworked residents at Mass. General and a report on the health of Boston.
Kennedy passes the healthcare reform baton to Dodd
Sen. Ted Kennedy, ill and unable to attend the ongoing Senate health reform battles, appeared in a campaign video this week for his old friend, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.). Kennedy basically said Dodd is going to be key in the push for health reform that has been, according to Kennedy "the cause of my life." (Aside from running for president, perhaps?):
"Today more than ever, we have a real opportunity to bring health care reform to Connecticut and all across America. And I believe that, with Chris Dodd's leadership, our families will finally have accessible, affordable health care."
Every week, veteran healthcare reporter Tinker Ready rounds up the latest news for MassDevice. This week, she takes a look at the H1N1 influenza virus's first fatality in the Bay State, New England senators jostling over healthcare reform. so-called "meaningful use" and news from Genzyme in Allston and Costa Rica.
The Bay State's first Swine Flu death
The World Health Organization declared a flu pandemic this week and a 30-year-old Boston woman was the state’s first death. The state Dept. of Public Health pointed out that pandemics are defined by spread, not severity, and promised that we’re ready for it.
Snoweing and CBOing absentee Kennedy
Every week, veteran healthcare reporter Tinker Ready rounds up the latest news for MassDevice. This week, she takes a look at Ted Kennedy's in absentia healthcare reform bill, John Kerry's defense of the status quo in Boston and how the reverberations from a New Yorker article reached into the Oval Office.
Mass players throw down in the D.C. health reform rumble
Ted Kennedy has a pair of healthcare fights in front of him, but he's mailing it in for one of them.
Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd told The Associated Press the ailing Kennedy, who's battling a malignant glioma, won’t be able to make next week’s working sessions on the emerging health reform bill.
Instead, Kennedy submitted his own version.
The 615-page bill released Wednesday includes a surprise provision for long-term care:
Every week, veteran healthcare reporter Tinker Ready rounds up the latest news for MassDevice. This week, she takes a look at the "Massachusetts Model" of healthcare reform, potential conflicts of interest at Partner's Health Care and what Aerosmith's Joe Perry has to do with Alzheimer's research.
Rough week for the Massachusetts Model
"Massive spending on non-benefit costs."
That’s the subtitle of a Health Affairs post about what is now known as "The Massachusetts Model."
The short synopsis: The cost of the paperwork will kill any cost savings:
Every week, veteran healthcare reporter Tinker Ready rounds up the latest news for MassDevice. This week, she takes a look at the impending collision between rising healthcare rolls and soaring costs in Massachusetts, a "drinking problem" at Harvard Medical School and a farewell to one of the last local docs to make house calls.
Costs, costs, costs
Unrelenting costs increases and the economic meltdown are eroding the benefits of the Massachusetts health plan, according to a new study from the D.C.-based Urban Institute:
Every week, veteran healthcare reporter Tinker Ready rounds up the latest news for MassDevice. This week, she takes a look at school closures due to the Swine Flu outbreak, the likelihood of a national health plan and hospital contraction and expansion plans in Longwood.
Lingering Swine Flu
Swine Flu continues to spread, but with few serious cases. Everyone seems less afraid. But at some schools, kids are staying home. A few schools with a lot of absent students closed this week, including Boston Latin.
My son brought home a letter from school Tuesday informing me that a handful of kids in the Cambridge system have the flu. (Cambridge — but not Boston — is in Middlesex County, home to half of the confirmed H1N1 cases in the state.) Might be Swine Flu; it might not, the letter said. Doctors have stopped testing in most cases. Still, per state order, anyone with flu symptoms was asked to stay home for seven days.
Every week, veteran healthcare reporter Tinker Ready rounds up the latest news for MassDevice. This week, she takes a look at the second stage of the Bay State's groundbreaking healthcare reform plan, the end of the Swine Flu panic and the push for HIT adoption.
Reform: The other Massachusetts health plan
Legislation on the floor by the end of July: That’s what Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday after she and key House committee heads met with President Barack Obama.
"This is about costs" she said.
Obama’s word: "Unsustainable."
But fixes to the way we pay for health care will move a lot of money around. There will be winners and losers. It will get ugly. Still, there is serious momentum.
Some of that could be seen during the last of three Senate Finance Committee meetings on the reform bill. The Tuesday video is still up on C-Span.
