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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged Massachusetts

1. August 11, 2011 01:43 PM

   A Hospital Story Not to Write

   Doing the digging for real news

   By Trudy Lieberman

   My Association of Health Care Journalists colleague Charlie Ornstein likes to say that stories about hospital ribbon-cuttings, wings named for wealthy benefactors, and expensive new technology are what hospitals want journalists to report on. They are less eager to have us write about quality of care, or malpractice suits, or anything that disturbs the pretty pictures they want to paint....

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2. May 15, 2012 03:19 PM

   Health costs: Is Mass. the only model?

   What about Vermont? (Not to mention Maryland)

   By Trudy Lieberman

   We all know Obamacare is Romneycare and Romneycare is Obamacare and that the Bay State has set the standard for everything health reform—from the individual mandate right down to ways to cut its gigantic medical bill. Or at least the media have passed along that narrative. The Wall Street Journal’s recent piece, “Same State, New Stab at Health Care,”was no...

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3. March 13, 2012 01:12 PM

   Is Buying Health Insurance Like Shopping on Amazon?

   No sirreeee, says WBUR

   By Trudy Lieberman

   On Monday, the AP reported that, as part of its health reform efforts, the federal government would require states to establish online shopping services that would ostensibly make it easier for consumers to research and purchase health insurance. The AP reported: “The new marketplaces are supposed to work like an Amazon.com for health insurance, providing consumers with one-stop shopping for...

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4. January 16, 2012 12:34 PM

   Legal Immigrants Win in Massachusetts

   But the political press misses the story

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Today we begin a series of occasional posts that bring Campaign Desk readers up-to-date on the workings of Massachusetts health reform and how the press is reporting on them. A few years ago, Bay State lawmakers, with the blessing of Gov. Deval Patrick, tossed some 30,000 legal immigrants off of the state’s health insurance plan, barring them from receiving subsidies...

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5. September 26, 2011 02:26 PM

   Meet the Bay State’s Uninsured

   The national media pass on an important story

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Last week the Census Bureau released new numbers showing that 5.6 percent of the population in Massachusetts remained without health insurance coverage. That’s a 42 percent drop in the number of the state’s uninsured since the law took effect in 2006. A new study by the Cambridge Health Alliance, one of the state’s safety net providers, showed who was left...

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6. March 26, 2012 06:14 PM

   Mitt and the Mandate

   Whose paternity is it, anyway?

   By Trudy Lieberman

   No matter what decision comes from the Supreme Court, which began hearing arguments Monday on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act health reform’s individual mandate, the individual mandate will continue to be a major flashpoint in the upcoming election and its aftermath. Indeed, as Mitt Romney’s candidacy blossomed in recent months, the media have finally come around to writing...

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7. September 19, 2011 01:08 PM

   Perry Misleads on RomneyCare

   Socialized medicine, really?

   By Trudy Lieberman

   It's becoming clear that Rick Perry has never met a buzzword he doesn’t like. We’ve heard that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme and that Medicare isn’t working. Now he has added the words “socialized medicine” to his stump speech vocabulary, in reference to the Massachusetts health reform law, which is all about the state’s residents buying insurance from private...

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8. September 8, 2011 03:51 PM

   Poking Holes in the Massachusetts Mantra

   The part of the story that the Times didn’t tell

   By Trudy Lieberman

   Sunday’s New York Times piece comparing the records of GOP presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Jon Huntsman on the topic of health reform was a fairly ho-hum recitation of what the three men did as governors of their respective states. Romney gave his blessing to a law requiring Massachusetts residents to carry insurance, but one that does next...

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9. May 13, 2011 02:26 PM

   Romney and His Health Care Plan

   Does he or doesn’t he like what he did?

   By Trudy Lieberman

   It would seem that the press coverage of Mitt Romney’s health care speech in Michigan yesterday was greater than media coverage of the Massachusetts law itself when it was held up as the model for federal reform legislation. This time, though, there were the elements of a good story, as defined by contemporary MSM journalism. There was a villain—the former...

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10. May 13, 2011 02:57 PM

    Romney on Romneycare is a Bust

    Conservatives are not buying Mitt’s Michigan speech

    By Joel Meares

    Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took to a stage in Ann Arbor yesterday to twist and turn his way through the “Obamacare”-“Romneycare” dilemma—that tricky quandary in which Romney must come out against the Affordable Health Act while dealing with the fact that he instituted a similar plan in Massachusetts five years ago. Here’s how Romney handles the problem, as reported...

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11. March 8, 2011 02:04 PM

    Romney on the Stump

    Health care’s not my baby, he says

    By Trudy Lieberman

    Mitt Romney has come out swinging against the health care plan he helped create, tackling the issue head on during a recent speech in New Hampshire. He seemed to be promoting a new narrative for his handiwork in Massachusetts—you know, the health care plan that his office once said was built on “a culture of insurance” and “personal responsibility.” Boston...

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12. June 18, 2012 11:05 AM

    The brave new world of health insurance exchanges

    It's time to take a look at how they are working in Massachusetts and beyond

    By Trudy Lieberman

    New York Times reporter Abby Goodnough’s piece last week about the health insurance exchange in Massachusetts is instructive—especially since other states are trying to set up their own versions of these shopping bazaars where the uninsured can buy coverage if the health reform law eventually takes effect. For the last three years we have been suggesting there’s an untold story...

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13. October 26, 2011 03:27 PM

    The Massachusetts Disconnect

    Another health reform lesson from the Bay State

    By Trudy Lieberman

    Much of the national press took a pass last week on another important “study says” story out of Massachusetts. This is the second time in the last month where the national media missed a story with implications for the success of health reform. The latest report, which came from the Harvard School of Public Health and the Blue Cross Blue...

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14. February 28, 2011 02:42 PM

    The Return of Socialized Medicine

    Mike Huckabee resurrects the bogeyman

    By Trudy Lieberman

    Mike Huckabee, presumed presidential aspirant, is preaching the gospel of socialized medicine by attacking the Massachusetts reform law, of all things. “If our goal in health-care reform is better care at lower cost, then we should take a lesson from RomneyCare, which shows that socialized medicine does not work,” Huckabee writes in his new book, A Simple Government—a kind of...

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15. October 1, 2012 03:26 PM

    The word on the street: Divided

    Massachusetts voters talk about Medicare, and their Senate race

    By Trudy Lieberman

    Last week I journeyed up to New England to see what voters thought of the debate over Medicare, for another of our CJR Town Halls, which this political season have been focused on Medicare. Polls continue to show that most Americans are wary about the voucher plan advocated by the GOP ticket, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. Some people I...

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