Regular posts will begin again on Sept. 3rd

Over the objections of major business groups, Governor Patrick signed a health care cost control bill today that includes public reporting of gifts or payments of $50 or more. The business community supports the rest of the new law, but says that the reporting requirement and gift rules the state will establish, will put the medical community in Massachusetts at a competitive disadvantage. Governor Patrick says in a press release that the concerns of the pharma and medical device manufacturers will be addressed when the state sets rules about how the law will work.

“I am confident the Department of Public Health, pursuant to its regulatory authority, will safeguard the confidentiality of companies’ trade secrets and proprietary information and protect against roadblocks to medical research or the education of health care providers.”

Health Care for All and other consumer groups are celebrating the Governor’s decision. More tomorrow….

A year ago, we posted this note about comments: Read more…

A number of consumer groups that think employers in Massachusetts can and should pay more to help cover the uninsured have been eagerly awaiting a state report released today. It says that the Commonwealth spent $637 million dollars on free or subsidized health coverage for employees of companies with 50 or more workers in the last fiscal year. Since we are almost at the end of FY08, the current number may be noticably higher. Most of these 254,000 workers were not eligible for their employer’s health plan because they were part-time, temporary or new (and in a waiting period). When you include spouses and dependents, the total number of individuals covered is 474,000.

In the next few days, we’ll hear calls to charge employers whose workers are in state health care plans or for stiffer fines on companies that don’t offer insurance to more of their employees. Read more…

The state’s Health Care Quality and Cost Council faces a challenge that is bigger than the Big Dig. After all, that project took 20 years to spend 15 billion dollars. The state spends that much in health care about every four months. If our health care access legislation is to succeed, the Council must find a way to bring one sixth of the state’s economy, the state’s largest industry, under control.

At the first meeting of the Council in the New Year on January 2, Dr. Don Berwick, president and CEO of the Institute of Healthcare Improvement and an elected member of the nation’s prestigious Institute of Medicine, provided just the right analogy when he compared our health care system to a “commons” - the space at the center of colonial towns where folks would bring their livestock to graze. If everyone acted only in their self-interest, the land would soon be overgrazed and all would lose. The challenge, he said, was to find a way to inspire those involved to view their duty as not only a personal gain, but also as a contribution to the good of the community. One needed to only look at those attending the meeting - consultants and those advocating for various constituencies - to know that this would be a hard sell. But we ignore him at our own peril. Read more…

“CommonHealth” is a new community blog at WBUR that will track Massachusetts’ attempt to cover the uninsured. The goal is to create a broad conversation about the new health care law and to cover more issues and updates than we can within the daily news cycle. The blog includes daily posts from a group of contributors listed below, stories produced by WBUR and links to other sites or information related to the law. Read more…