Dear ,
For the past month or so, the House has moved on a lot of bills, but today I’m going to focus on health care reforms. Earlier this summer we passed a bill on strengthening oversight of healthcare and supporting community hospitals. Later today, we are expected to pass a bill to curb the cost of medication by making some asthma, diabetes, and heart medications free and closing loopholes that drive up the cost of prescription drugs for profit. I’ll dive into the oversight bill first and tackle prescription drug prices once we have more details of the bill later.
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Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund Endorsement!
I am so thrilled to have received Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund’s endorsement! Healthcare and especially essential reproductive healthcare has been a top priority for me as your legislator. Prior to serving you, I fought for many of the laws we have today as a local advocate and activist. I’m so proud of the immense progress Massachusetts has made to lead the nation in Reproductive Justice and I look forward to continuing the fight ahead to protect access to abortions, contraception, IVF, and the full spectrum of maternal care.
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Thank you for the nearly 900 residents who signed my nomination papers!
I want to thank everyone who signed my nomination papers! And a special THANK YOU to everyone who helped collect signatures from their neighbors, knocked on doors, or greeted neighbors at the farmers market. Every two years, to qualify for getting on the ballot, I have to collect signatures and I am deeply grateful for how many residents signed, thank you!
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Join me for my birthday celebration tomorrow 5pm-7pm at The Neighborhood
Please RSVP here so we order enough Leone’s pizza, snacks, and drinks! Hope to see you tomorrow at The Neighborhood Restaurant in Union Square! |
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Now let’s talk about bills! We’ll dive into strengthening oversight of healthcare, also known as An Act enhancing the market review process. |
A quick explainer on why this bill was needed:
Steward Health Care, a for-profit, private equity owned company, which operates nine hospitals in Massachusetts, filed for bankruptcy protection and planned to sell its hospitals and healthcare system. This puts many communities in an unpredictable and precarious lurch. Since 2010, this company has made profits off of our healthcare by cutting costs in staffing and medical equipment. It acquired several community hospitals and then turned a quick profit by selling the buildings to real estate investors. In 2016, they sold 37 hospital buildings to Medical Properties Trust, the largest hospital landlord in the U.S. Prior to filing for bankruptcy, Steward owed more than $9 billion to creditors, including Medical Properties Trust. In short, their business model was to make quick profits at the expense of everyone else, including at the expense of community hospitals' fiscal stability. At one point, it was so bad that Mass General Brigham withdrew its physicians from hospitals owned by Steward in Haverhill and Methuen due to concerns over patient safety and care standards. As is often the case with situations like this, the C-suite executives and Wall Street investors will get paid, handsomely, while frontline healthcare workers, patients, and communities that depend on these hospitals are left in a state of anxiety and flux, and most importantly put patients at tremendous risk.
And these consequences are about life and death. Earlier this year, a new mother tragically bled to death shortly after giving birth at St. Elizabeth’s hospital because Steward had its life-saving medical devices repossessed just a few weeks earlier. The doctors who treated the new mother for internal bleeding, discovered a bleed deep within her liver and were ready to treat it quickly, only to discover that the embolism coil that doctors could have used to stop the bleeding wasn’t available. This equipment is standard for Level IV maternal care centers but because Steward had not paid the bills, it was repossessed. According to court records, similar invoices had gone unpaid for more than a year throughout the nine hospitals owned by Steward. This wasn't merely negligence, It is the tragic and lethal outcome of a business model based on unchecked corporate greed.
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What this bill does: oversight
The House moved forward on legislation that attempts to tackle this dire lack of oversight, hold accountable these immoral and rapacious practices that was pervasive at Steward, and prevent investors and the for-profit healthcare system from continuing these practices moving forward. -
Increase transparency related to the corporate structure of hospitals and other provider organizations by requiring disclosure of significant for-profit investment, including any private equity investments, and empower the state’s Center for Health Information and Analysis (CHIA) to gather more financial data on hospitals and other provider organizations. It’s worth noting that Steward sued CHIA in 2017 in order to keep their finances private.
- Enhance penalties for failure to comply with data reporting requirements, including increased financial penalties, adverse consequences for licensure, and withholding approval of future projects
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Empower the Health Policy Commission (HPC) to scrutinize certain transactions more closely for anticompetitive impacts, such as significant equity investments that result in a change of ownership or control of a hospital, conversion of a hospital from a non-profit to a for-profit entity, and a significant transfer of a hospital’s assets
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Expand the Attorney General’s authority to seek information from significant equity investors, real estate investment trusts (REITs), and management service organizations as part of that office’s statutory authority to monitor and investigate health care trends, and exposes entities with an ownership or controlling interest in a provider organization to potential liability under the state’s False Claims Act.
Unfortunately, we are limited in various ways as a state to regulate private equity and investment practices, notably in fundamental human rights like healthcare, which is the core driver of all of the issues emerging from Steward’s actions. Senator Warren and Senator Markey have filed a bill called Corporate Crimes Against Health Care Act, which imposes more severe consequences for corporate actors.
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What this bill does: address rising cost of healthcare
This bill also includes reforms that establish a benchmark-setting process for cost of healthcare and increases enforcement authority of the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission (HPC) to keep healthcare providers inline to meet Massachusetts’ cost containment goals. Specifically HPC will have enforcement authority when a health care entity exceeds the cost benchmark and when a first performance improvement plan is not successful, to make a comprehensive referral to the Attorney General for further enforcement.
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What this bill does: protect community hospitals
Finally this legislation includes policies that protect independent community hospitals and attempts to slows further market consolidation and acquisition by larger hospital systems.
The bill establishes and integrates a Rate Equity Target within the benchmark enforcement process for insurance companies, with the goal of raising the reimbursement rate for historically poorly reimbursed acute care hospitals. Many of these hospitals are found in gateway cities and underserved communities. This incentivizes insurance companies to pay these hospitals no less than 15 percent below the average reimbursement rate for hospitals in the insurance company’s network during the first three-year benchmark cycle. Thereafter, the bill guarantees a minimum percentage increase in a hospital’s reimbursement rate as a percentage of the health care cost growth benchmark.
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Event updates on Beacon Hill and in Somerville Stood with SEIU509
I recently joined City Councilor Jivan Sobrinho-Wheeler of Cambridge during a lunchtime walk-out with SEIU509 workers at DCF. They recently won their demands for management accountability! |
Disability Pride flag raising
As part of Disability Pride Month in Somerville I attended the Disability Pride flag raising. Thanks to all who came out and to the Somerville Commission for Persons with Disabilities for putting this event together! I look forward to continuing to work with them on all of the issues residents with disabilities face in our city. |
Erika's Birthday Canvass and Cookout
The birthday celebrations continue on Saturday, July 27 from 10am-1pm at my house, 11 Wesley Park, for some canvassing, good food, and good company. We'll meet for a quick kickoff training at 10am, knock on doors and return for a BBQ cookout! And thank you again to everyone who has volunteered so far! Sign up for canvassing below! |
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Join us for office hours I will be hosting more office hours after the end of the legislative session (July 31). Please join us to ask any questions you may have about state and local government! Or just drop by to say hi and grab some drinks and snacks! - Tuesday August 13th, 6-8pm, at Seven Hills Park, with Ward 6 City Councilor Lance Davis
- Monday August 19th, 6-8pm, at the Central Library Auditorium, 79 Highland Ave with Ward 3 City Councilor Ben Ewen-Campen and Ward 3 School Committee Member Sarah Philips
Can’t make it? Please reach out anytime to erika@electerika.com or via phone at 857-264-1096, feel free to call or text, if I don’t pick up, leave a message and I or my team will call you right back. |
It is truly an honor to serve you all, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me with your thoughts and questions. Thank you all for your support and kind wishes! Hope to see you all soon! |
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