Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Charley Baker – DeLeo’s Leadership Team – Diane Patrick – Slots – Tim Cahill – Finneran Radio –

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What’s sad is that Bob Spellane is a major dude in Bob DeLeo’s leadership team.

This guy is so ethically challenegd he should pull a Clark Rockefeller and plead insanity.

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Diane Patrick is in a public service ad I saw the other night. She is great in it.

Let’s see more of her in the campaign Deval.

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Will Bobby D be able to deliver the slots and whatever else Sufflok Downs is demanding?

I question whether the progressive dems in the House will let him get anything.

Will Deval deliver on resort casino? Is his wife’s firm a big beneficiary if we get resort type casinos?

I don’t know, but I think Deval should not push so hard on casinos this time around and make Bobby D and the legislature look worse.

Point out the self interest stuff buried deep in the House plan.

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Great to see Dan “Search and Avoid’ Conley and his good good friends The Boston Police Department got all the “gang members” together and read them the riot act.

That’s the Boston summer youth violence prevention program?

Anyone see the problem here?

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Can’t Tim Cahill just go away? He’s one big disaster in the making.

In my opinion.

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Tom Finneran is holding his own in the ratings. Things have changed somewhat in radio since the ratings recently updated their data collecting system.

Todd Feinberg still sucks however.  He insists on being the shallow right wing mouth piece.  

Hey Todd, nobody around here cares about Sarah Palin.

Todd is the perfect example of what growing up in suburbia can do to someone.

You see, Wise ass kids that grew up in urban neighborhoods were fortunate. they got their asses kicked at an early age and learned that just interrupting someone with lame remarks is not funny or clever.

Instead Todd went through Lexington and Tufts not realizing how obtuse he really is.

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Comments

  1. Your slipping old man May I suggest MGH can help with it

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    p>As Usual just my opinion

  2. on National Health Care Reform

    Finally, I remain a skeptic of the so-called public plan.  As I’ve said before, I worry less about the impact of having the federal government writing the rules and  competing directly with plans like Harvard Pilgrim for business, and more about the federal government’s ability to do this at all, much less do it well.  Merely coordinating basic demographic information between Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid – three big federal programs that millions of Americans belong to – can be a chore for beneficiaries, their children, and their health plans.  It’s not unusual for our members to spend six months or so trying to get this stuff corrected before they call us and ask us to step in on their behalf.  Our member service representatives then spend a lot of time ensuring that the information between these three programs is consistent and updated – which it often isn’t.

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    p>What do you think? Helps or hurts a potential candidacy for Governor?

    • His comments are well made and may on the first review help his potential viability. Yet what I see in his post is a person who has picked out the problems only none of the benefits. Maybe it would have been a slam-dunk if he had offered a true solution to the run away costs of Health care in the country. With out offering a solution Charlie just sounds like another executive who whines about the issue but then sits back and says it’s just to complicated for me to figure out and his check is auto deposited into his account at the end of the week and he goes off to another meeting. If he wants to make a dent in Massachusetts come up with a solution to one aspect of the problem that will make a difference.

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      p>Certainly I believe that what we are seeing is a result of one thing and one thing only and it is the issue that has for 50 years run amok of every system it passes through and over in our country and that is the Baby boomer generation. In the 60’s communities were faced with the need to build schools for the generation and from 1960 till late 70’s our generation busted out the doors and saw local tax rates shoot up to pay to educate us. We then went int o colleges who went from small campuses to sprawling mega universities over night to deal with our numbers. Now as we age and the last 10 years is certainly evident of this our need for medical services grow, as our bodies demand more attention. Our Joints need replacing we need test after test to screen for 100’s of different cancers and we need a pill for this and a test for that and as we age we need more extensive and expensive procedures from transplants to radical treatments for any number of conditions we develop as we pass into our 50’s and 60’s. As we grow and our shear numbers increase the need the costs will go up and up to pay for just the shear volume. Ad in the fact that we are aging better and longer then any generation and the cost of Health care is increasing by a factor annually. It is the same formula that is bankrupting Social Security and why the tables show it going broke long before we all get a share. Health care 20 years ago had many of us paying in on a weekly basis but rarely using it. Today even at 53 I have 2 visits a year for check ups at least one test per year 4 orthopedic surgeries in the last 5 years. In the fist 47 years of my life I was likely a net contributor to the pot needed to pay for the services used to day I am likely breaking even so some one else premiums is going to pay for the neighbor who has Diabetes and the other who has Hepatitis and still another is paying for the person around the corner who just had a kidney transplant.

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      p>Ok Long response but I think you get the picture we are using the insurance we once paid and rarely used so rates must go up to pay for what we use and that cost is breaking the bank and justly so. What is the answer well you have simply 3 areas cost; you cut what you pay for a given service, Administration; you cut out the middle man with billing and forms and paperwork etc, or you can cut the services; no more wellness check ups no more preventative testing no more prescriptions for conditions you don’t know about until some one reads about it in you Obit,

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      p>Looking at the condition of hospitals we may be able to trim a bit their say 5% maybe less maybe more. Services, NO WAY will you cut me from avoiding cancer of a heart attack of Diabetes. OK that only leaves Administration, this is the paper end of the work this is the company that handles the paying of the bill that takes it processes questions it and finally pays it to the provider after it pays for it’s overhead, it’s personnel that watch over it, question it, process it, then finally pay for it, and it pays for the building, the card, the 24 hour representative to say “your covered” when you call. It also pays for Charlie Baker to have a job, write a blog and go to meetings all with direct deposit. What is the make up? Well I have seen numbers quoted of anywhere from 10%-22% depends on the plan depends on the region it depends on the level of greed and investor satisfaction with returns.

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      p>Well I think it is clear where I stand on how to fix the rising costs and my belief that the cost is going to rise as we use it more and more. But I am not running for Governor where does Charlie Stand? who knows I am not sure he knows or is willing to say but his check is in his account every Friday at 5PM and he shows up for work every Monday morning and the cycle starts all over again.

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      p>As Usual Just my Opinion

    • in performance.  Athenahealth is a web based physician practice management company based in Watertown.  Jonathan Bush (yup, he’s related) runs the company and they are well respected in what they do.  Private insurance companies do better as they play ball with companies like Athenahealth and work out partnerships.  Humana for instance worked directly with Athenahealth with a real time interface so they rank high.  The relationship is not the same of other PPM companies, so they will likely rank lower elsewhere.  

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      p>They released a payer performance rankings called PayerView.  Again, these are for professional charges for physician practices using Athenahealth, which would tend to skew to privates and HPHC still got taken to the back of the woodshed by Medicare, nice job Charlie:

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      p>Northeast Payers:

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      p>#4 BC/BS MA
      #7 MEDICARE Part B MA
      #11 Newtwork Health
      #14 Tufts
      #15 Harvard Pilgram

  3. You edited your title to cut the poll instead of including it. Your slipping Ernie, tisk tisk tisk.

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    p>As Usual just my opinion

  4. …that as a Harvard Pilgrim subscriber I would rather go to the DMV for a new license than deal with Baker’s customer service. Deval should be able to collect lots of stories about bureaucracy run amok in Baker’s shop.

    • I think a stronger pitch is “Charlie Baker, the guy who runs a huge HMO and now wants to run the state.”

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      p>Holy cow, short of securities dealer, is there a worse resume item these days?

    • Just the New York Spelling vs the Boston spelling and Ernie was using the Bronks cheer for old Charlie Baker.

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      p>WHO knew?

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      p>Well we learn somethign new every day.

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      p>Thanks Charley! did I spell that right Humm??????

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      p>As Usual Just my Opinion

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