The Codcast

New Mexico is making waves, and generating questions from curious onlookers, by offering universal child care to all families. How is it funded? Is it truly universal? Are there enough caretakers to keep up with demand? And with our astronomically high child care costs, could Massachusetts achieve something similar? Jacob Vigil, the chief legislative officer of New Mexico Voices for Children, join...

Patrick Gilligan has a lifetime of experience in health care. One year ago, he accepted the role of CEO of Point32Health, a regional nonprofit health insurance provider. On this month's edition of Health or Consequences , hosts John McDonough and Paul Hattis ask Gilligan to take a deep dive into the current state of health insurance. Are patients getting what they're paying for? How are he...

Gov. Maura Healey’s administration estimates that the state will need 222,000 by 2035 to deal with existing needs and population growth. Her new housing secretary, Juana Matias, says we can meet that goal, and joins CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith to talk about chipping away at decades of sluggish housing production. Matias, who was a state representative and regional administration at...

For generations, it was virtually guaranteed that American children would out-earn their parents. But as Raj Chetty explains in this special live episode of The Codcast, recorded at the recent WBUR Festival, that dream is fading. What factors are contributing to economic stagnation? How can we increase upward mobility? How do these trends vary across neighborhoods, race, gender, and immigration st...

Matches in the world’s biggest sports spectacle will kick off this week across North America. With Boston as one of the host cities — seven matches will be played at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, which will be renamed Boston Stadium for the World Cup tournament — Massachusetts will be in the spotlight as it hosts thousands of international fans and will need to safely move people between the cit...

Massachusetts has been busing students between neighborhoods and school districts for 60 years, but segregation within the school system persists – and in some places it’s actually gotten worse over recent decades. This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith talks with Dan O’Brien, professor of public policy and urban affairs and director of the Boston Area Research Initi...

On this month’s edition of Health or Consequences , hosts John McDonough and Paul Hattis are joined by Victoria Pulos, a health law attorney at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, to discuss the fallout of OB3, or the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” for Massachusetts residents. Who is likely to lose coverage? How has the state responded to federal cuts? And if Democrats win the midterms, can any...

Dave Denison was the first editor of CommonWealth Magazine and oversaw the publication of its first issue 30 years ago, in the spring of 1996. Mirroring similar publications in other states, CommonWealth’s mission was to dive deep into how policy actually impacts people, no easy task in a state where politicians held their cards close. Today, Laura Colarusso, editor of CommonWealth Beacon , helms...

Defining the middle class is harder than it might seem – it might mean owning a home, having steady work, keeping a pot of savings, or the kids and white picket fence vision of the “American Dream.” Historian Andrew Seal, whose research and writings focus on how the middle class thinks of itself, joins CommonWealth Beacon senior reporter Jennifer Smith on The Codcast to interpret recent Bay State...

Massachusetts’s extreme housing crunch is no secret, but who is actually in charge of fixing it? This week on The Codcast, state Sen. Julian Cyr and Local Journalism Project executive director Janet Lesniak join CommonWealth beacon reporter Jennifer Smith to talk about the role of employee housing on the Cape and Islands – how sustainable is it to expect small businesses to become landlords for th...

What does the latest executive order aimed at changing how people cast their votes mean for Massachusetts? Two lawsuits are currently working their way through District Court in the state challenging a directive from President Trump that the US Postal Service only deliver mail ballots to voters on a federal citizenship list. Celia Canavan, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Massac...

Policymakers in Massachusetts are increasingly eager to impose tighter restrictions on how young people use social media like Instagram and TikTok, repeatedly slamming the platforms for exploiting minors and fueling malaise. This week on The Codcast, we take a look at how the research of brain development overlaps with social media use, what regulatory attempts in other states and countries could...

On April 12, 2006, at Faneuil Hall, Gov. Mitt Romney signed the Massachusetts Health Insurance Reform Act, commonly known as Chapter 58 or "RomneyCare." The groundbreaking legislation established the Massachusetts Health Connector, it expanded Medicaid, it required employers to provide insurance, it subsidized health care insurance for low income residents and ultimately drastically redu...

This week on The Codcast, we dig into the new partnership between Massachusetts and OpenAI to roll out an AI assistant to help with daily governmental tasks. Jennifer Smith, reporter for CommonWealth Beacon, is joined by Technology Secretary Jason Snyder, who says his goals include “democratizing innovation” and helping streamline bureaucratic systems like the DMV. Snyder discusses the contract wi...

After 28 years at the helm of Mass. Health Quality Partners, Barbra Rabson is stepping down. MHQP provides data on patient experiences of primary care. They bring stakeholders and patient representatives together to further their shared mission, improve healthcare quality and equity. On this months episode of 'Health or Consequences,' John McDonough and Paul Hattis ask Rabson about the impact of M...

This week on the Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith talks with Matt Noyes, director of state and federal advocacy for the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association (CHAPA). They dig into the Bay State implications of the sprawling bipartisan “meatball” of a housing bill that recently passed the US Senate, and take a look at how efforts at home might interact with federal policy....

This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporters Jennifer Smith and Hallie Claflin discuss Claflin‘s latest piece on how immigration enforcement step ups are impacting school enrollment. They zero in on the state’s Gateway Cities, which are home to a disproportionate share of Massachusetts‘s immigrant population and are sounding the alarm over the psychological and fiscal effects of federal...

This week on The Codcast, we unpack how increasingly expensive utility bills are shaping the energy debate in Massachusetts and reaching a fever pitch on Beacon Hill. With energy costs now the top household concern in the Bay State, how should policymakers respond to the affordability crisis as power demand is expected to rise and with the due date on ambitious climate commitments creeping closer?...

This week on The Codcast, we dive into Gov. Maura Healey's "Gateway to Pre-K" agenda. By the end of 2026, her administration declared that every family of a 4-year-old in the state’s 26 Gateway Cities would have the opportunity – at low or no cost – to enroll their child in a preschool program that prepares them for kindergarten. But local providers say they won’t get there. Our guests, Department...

This week on The Codcast, we dive into what can feel like a perennial story: the MBTA hurtling toward another financial shortfall that Beacon Hill needs to address. But at this point, is the significant growth in state funding for the T an acknowledgment that good public transit requires big public investment, or is it a reflection of out-of-control spending? Our guests, former Transportation Secr...

This week on the Codcast – what does online surveillance look like in 2026? CommonWealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith talks with Kade Crockford, director of technology and justice programs at the ACLU of Massachusetts. They discuss the biggest misconceptions about data privacy online, why your information is valuable and vulnerable, and legislation proposed at the state level to limit who can se...

On the monthly Health or Consequences episode of The Codcast, John McDonough of the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and Paul Hattis of the Lown Institute talk with Michael Caljouw, the state commissioner of insurance. They discuss new regulations for insurers, concerns about the stability and solvency of the Massachusetts health insurance system, and insurer consolidation. Hosts: John McDo...

Description: This week on the Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon senior reporter Chris Lisinski hosts a roundtable discussion to dive into the details of Gov. Maura Healey’s new $63.4 billion state budget proposal with Viviana Abreu-Hernandez, president of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, and Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute. Guests weigh in on the sustainability of p...

This week on The Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon reporters Jennifer Smith and Chris Lisinski talk about Gov. Maura Healey's 2026 State of the Commonwealth speech. They compare her tone and policy position to earlier years, review reactions to the speech, and look ahead at what this says about Healey's run for reelection.

This week on the Codcast, CommonWealth Beacon senior reporter Jennifer Smith talks with Audrey Morse Gasteier, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Connector, and Alex Sheff, senior director of policy and government affairs at Health Care For All. Gov. Maura Healey announced last week that the state would use $250 million from the Commonwealth Care Trust Fund to assist some Massachusetts...