Tracy Jan covers national health policy and politics from the Washington bureau of The Boston Globe. She writes about how policies made in DC impact the people and institutions of New England and beyond.
– “44,000 to lose Medicaid coverage in Maine” uses Maine as the focal point of last year’s contentious political debate over Medicaid expansion. Traditionally one of the most generous states when it comes to insuring the poor, Maine not only rejected Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, its Republican governor chose to cut back on existing aid.
– “Massachusetts’ Medicare windfall” details how the state’s Congressional delegation and hospital association used a tiny Nantucket hospital to exploit Medicare reimbursement rules to allow Massachusetts hospitals to reap up to $367 million a year, at the expense of other states.
– “Health law coverage can be tough sell in some states” follows Enroll America volunteers through one Dallas neighborhood on a summer weekend as they try to spread the word about insurance coverage, showing the uphill battle for Health Policy supporters in red states like Texas.
– “Research giants win on federal funding” shows how lobbyists for Harvard, MIT and other powerhouse universities thwarted the Obama administration’s attempt to reform how much schools receive for overhead costs so that more money could be channeled into scientific studies.