Over the past ten days, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the Mass. Hospital Association have both issued reports on health plan performance in Massachusetts.  The state’s report - issued by the Massachusetts Division of Insurance - focuses on health plan administrative spending and health care claims costs from 2002 through 2007.

On administrative spending, the state’s report confirms what the plans have been saying for […]

A few days ago, Doug Brown wrote an opinion piece in the Boston Globe about UMass Memorial Health Care’s experience with public reporting of cardiac surgery outcomes.  The article speaks for itself, but the short story is this - when Massachusetts expanded the number of hospitals who could do cardiac surgery in 2000, the state established a public reporting […]

It’s an eye-catching cover, that’s for sure.  How many times does one see “brand names” from The Heritage Foundation, The Brookings Institution, The Urban Institute, The American Enterprise Institute, and the The Progressive Policy Institute all on the same letterhead?  The answer to that question is “never.”  So - what did this collection of Washington DC […]