Massachusetts

State Consumer Health Advocacy Program

Community Catalyst provides policy and technical support to the ACT!! (Affordable Care Today) Coalition. The group is committed to implementing comprehensive health reform that honors the following five principles: MassHealth (Medicaid) restoration and expansion; Cost relief to moderate-income, working families including sliding-scale subsidies for private insurance; Fair payment rates for doctors, hospitals, and other providers of MassHealth services; Meaningful employer responsibility; and Fair and sustainable funding. Community Catalyst is a member of this coalition along with Health Care for All.

Hospital Accountability Project

The Massachusetts Project for Hospital Fair Debt Collection and Amelioration Guidelines was a two-year project that that worked with local consumer groups, Vanguard Health Systems, and the Massachusetts Hospital Association to develop and implement a replicable model of hospital policies and practices that improve health access, ameliorate medical debt, and establish fair debt collection practices and credit counseling services for Massachusetts Hospitals.  The collaborative worked to create debt amelioration, collection and credit counseling guidelines from which a statewide policy proposal can be presented to the Massachusetts Hospital Association, the Attorney General’s Office, the Massachusetts Legislature, or the Division of Health Care Financing and Policy. The collaborative completed its work in December 2009.

Collaborative Partners:
Health Care For All (Lead Partner), Health Law Advocates, Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers, People Advancing Compassionate Transformation for Social Justice (PACT), The Artists Foundation

The New England Alliance for Children’s Health

Since 2006, this Community Catalyst project has built a regional partnership of hospitals, advocates, healthcare providers, business leaders, interfaith organizations and consumers who work to ensure that all children in the six-state region have access to the highest quality health care.

Partners:
Massachusetts Chapter, American Academy of Pediatrics, Massachusetts Family Voices at the Federation for Children with Special Needs, Massachusetts General Hospital - Department of Pediatrics, Massachusetts General Hospital Chelsea Health Center -  Adolescent & Pediatric Medicine Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital Revere Healthcare Center - Department of Pediatrics, Massachusetts Medical Society, Tufts–New England Medical Center Floating Hospital for Children - Department of Pediatrics

Integrated Care Advocacy Project

Campaign for Better Care

The Massachusetts campaign is organizing a strong consumer voice around the development of a state proposal to reform the health care payment system in order to lower costs and improve the quality of care.

The Massachusetts campaign is being led by Health Care for All (HCFA), is the leading consumer health advocacy organization working to improve the health care system for all residents of Massachusetts. HCFA is working with a diverse group of organizations, including those representing people with specific diseases or disabilities, seniors, women, labor and communities of faith.

Partner:
Health Care for All

Prescription Access and Quality

Community Catalyst works with state and federal policymakers, regulators, and academic medical centers to curb the inappropriate influence of pharmaceutical marketing on prescribing. In collaboration with the Pew Prescription Project, Community Catalyst supports the federal campaign to pass the Physician Payments Sunshine Act, which would require prescription drug and medical device companies to report payments to physicians into a publicly searchable online database.  We also collaborated with the Project and the American Medical Student Association on its PharmFree Scorecard, which assesses conflict-of-interest policies at all U.S. medical schools.

Prescription Access Litigation Project

Prescription Access Litigation (PAL) member organizations participate in PAL’s work by joining class action lawsuits as plaintiffs, educating their members about the pharmaceutical industry’s tactics, publicizing PAL projects and successes, and signing on to “friend of the Court” briefs and regulatory testimony/comments submitted by PAL.

Coalition Members:  
ABCD Health Services, Boston Building Service Employee Trust Fund (SEIU Local 615), Commonwealth Care Alliance, Community Catalyst, IUOE Local 4 Health and Welfare Fund, IUOE Local 98, Health Care For All Inc., Health Law Advocates, Lynn Health Task Force, Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition, MASSPIRG, Massachusetts Senior Action Council, New England Regional Council of Carpenters, Our Bodies Ourselves, Pipefitter's Local 537 Trust Funds, SEIU Local 615, Sheet Metal Workers Local Union 17 Insurance Fund, TeamstersCare, Women's Health Institute

• July 23, 2010 A Path Toward Health Equity: Strategies to Strengthen Community Advocacy Community Catalyst's report focuses on strengthening community-based health equity initiatives. The report identifies successes and challenges faced by organizations in six states doing health equity work.
• November 13, 2009 The MassHealth Pharmacy Program: Implementation Report The MassHealth Pharmacy Program Implementation report, presented at the Massachusetts Health Policy Forum Nov. 13, found that the Massachusetts model is a successful approach to clinically rigorous pharmaceutical cost containment that has been met with acceptance among providers and advocates.
• October 08, 2009 Consumer Principles on Massachusetts Payment Reform Consumer Perspective on the Massachusetts Proposal to Shift to a Global Payment System
• June 04, 2009 Creating Exchanges: Lessons from Massachusetts Massachusetts’ experience with health reform offers useful lessons as Congress considers creating a national health insurance Exchange. The report delves into that issue.
• June 04, 2009 Massachusetts Health Reform: The Facts Since Massachusetts passed its landmark health care reform plan in April 2006, 428,000 people have gained quality, affordable health coverage. The fact sheet provides basic information about health reform happened in the Commonwealth.
• May 13, 2009 Funding Makes a Difference: The Role of Philanthropy in Massachusetts' Road to Health Care Reform The Blue Cross Blue Sheild of Massachusetts Foundation and Community Catalyst trace the 25-year history of Massachusetts health reform, focusing on the significant role the philanthropic community played in all phases of reform efforts.
• August 18, 2008 Massachusetts Health Reform: What is the real story? Community Catalyst in partnership with Health Care for All in Massachusetts created a brief fact sheet outlining the successes and challenges of the state's health reform law.
• December 01, 2007 Revisiting Massachusetts Health Reform: 18 Months Later This paper examines enrollment and coverage in the first year-and-a-half of implementation. The examination of policies tested in Massachusetts health reform provides important lessons for other states.
• November 09, 2007 Summaries of laws in 18 states governing the provision of community benefits The report analyzes requirements regarding provision of community health care services in 18 states.
• April 01, 2007 Affordable Health Care for All: What Does Affordable Really Mean? To respond to a gap in literature on affordability, Community Catalyst takes a first step in creating a new methodology for defining affordability of health insurance by drawing together several different studies. This is done by applying this framework to Massachusetts as a case study.
• October 01, 2006 Consumer Health Advocacy: A View from 16 States This report looks at state health reform in 16 states addressing the following questions: What is actually happening in state capitals and communities across the nation as these trends play out and crucial health policy decisions are being made? Can health care consumers actively participate in health policymaking? What political, economic, and organizational factors are making consumer health advocacy successful in some states and extremely challenging in others?
• April 21, 2006 Massachusetts Health Reform: What it Does; How it Was Done; Challenges Ahead On Tuesday April 4, 2006 the Massachusetts House and Senate voted to approve legislation that will extend health insurance coverage to hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents. At the same time, the legislation leaves many critical questions about the scope and cost of benefits and the obligations of individuals to purchase coverage unanswered. This report attempts to explain the critical issues.

• Community Catalyst's Free Care Compendium This web resource summarizes free care laws and regulations in Massachusetts and in states across the country. It also includes a national snapshot of trends across the states, recommendations for free care standards and best practices, fact sheets, and tools.
• August 08, 2008 State Coverage Matrix: Strategies Used to Expand Health Insurance Coverage Across the United States from RWJF State Coverage Initiative This research tool organizes available information on specific strategies states have used to expand or sustain insurance coverage.
• August 08, 2008 State Health Facts Find data on highlighted health and health care topics available in a 50-state comparison and through individual state profiles and fact sheets provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

• April 08, 2010 Community Catalyst Joins Launch of Campaign For Better Care New Campaign Aims to Focus Health Reform Implementation On Improving, Coordinating Care for Vulnerable Older Adults
• March 07, 2010 Massachusetts Patients, Doctors, Small Businesses and Scott Brown Supporters Call for National Health Care Reform in New Video
• January 20, 2010 Americans Still Need Health Care Reform: The work for quality, affordable health care must go on Statement of Robert Restuccia, Executive Director of Community Catalyst, regarding the election of Scott Brown to fill the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s U.S. Senate Seat
• November 13, 2009 Clinical rigor and bending the cost curve: Policies and process in the MassHealth Pharmacy Program New report looks at the early impact of MassHealth Pharmacy Program drug list
• January 08, 2009 Community Catalyst Head Speaks at Mass. Town Hall Meeting on Health Care Reform
• August 19, 2008 Massachusetts Health Reform: What's the Real Story? Community Catalyst's new fact sheet outlines the successes and challenges of Massachusetts health care reform.
• January 08, 2008 Community Catalyst Announces First Round of Grant Awards to Support Improved Health Care Access for the Underinsured Community Catalyst, a national consumer health advocacy organization, today announced that it has awarded an initial round of grants to advocate-led collaboratives in California, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee to work on policy and organizing activities to benefit the underinsured in each state.
• December 13, 2007 New Analysis of Massachusetts Health Reform Shows Initial Success, But Challenges Remain Community Catalyst, a national consumer health advocacy organization, has released an analysis of the first year-and-a-half of Massachusetts’ comprehensive health reform package.
• December 05, 2007 National Consumer Health Organization Releases Analysis of State Standards for Nonprofit Hospital Community Benefits Community Catalyst, a national consumer health advocacy organization, today released an updated compilation and analysis of all state hospital community benefit laws and guidelines. Only 17 states currently have any form of standards in place requiring nonprofit hospital compliance with obligations tied to their tax-exempt legal status.
• May 01, 2007 New Survey Shows 89% of New Englanders Support Expanding SCHIP to Cover All Uninsured Children A new poll released by the New England Alliance for Children’s Health (NEACH) found that nearly nine in ten voters favor expanding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to cover all uninsured children in their state. The support crossed political lines as majorities of Independents, Democrats and Republicans supported expanding SCHIP.
• April 18, 2007 Community Catalyst Releases New Research on Health Care Affordability Community Catalyst has released a new study that fills a major gap in defining affordability of health coverage for low- and moderate-income families.
• October 03, 2006 Benchmark Report Highlights Impact of the Consumer Voice in Addressing Health Care Reform Recent passage of major healthcare coverage expansions in Massachusetts, Colorado, and Illinois suggests that momentum for significant policy change will increasingly take place in states rather than in the federal government.
• February 06, 2004 IOM Recommendation on Health Care Workforce Diversity Already Being Pioneered in New York and Massachusetts Applauding the recommendations contained in the just- released report from the Institute of Medicine, “In the Nation’s Compelling Interest: Ensuring Diversity in the Health Care Workforce,” Community Catalyst today noted that the IOM’s recommendations correctly recognize the critical role broad coalitions that include community members can play in fostering health care workforce diversity.