The Codcast

A report from the frontlines at MGH by CommonWealth Beacon

The Codcast feat. Anthony Amore and Amy Carnevale by CommonWealth Beacon

Straus lays out rationale for transpo revenues by CommonWealth Beacon

Evan Horowitz & the Center for State Policy Analysis by CommonWealth Beacon

One year in, Suffolk DA Rachael Rollins take stock by CommonWealth Beacon

Steve Walsh raises concerns about urgent care clinics by CommonWealth Beacon

TransitMatters feat. State Sen. Brendan Crighton by CommonWealth Beacon

The Codcast feat. Developer Tom O'Brien by CommonWealth Beacon

With a portion of the state’s casino revenues, the Massachusetts Cultural Council is testing whether arts and culture can be prescribed just like medicine. The organization is running three pilot projects where health providers, counselors, and social workers prescribe cultural activities for those with whom they work. The goal is to see whether going to the zoo, visiting a museum, or attending th...

SOME OF THE STATE’S leading transit advocates are calling for extending the life of the existing MBTA Fiscal and Management Control Board for six months to a year and making buses free across the state. On the TransitMatters Codcast hosted by CommonWealth magazine, Jim Aloisi, the former transportation secretary and TransitMatters board member; Josh Fairchild, the co-founder and president of Trans...

Partners vowing to end surprise billing by CommonWealth Beacon

The Codcast with Bill Weld by CommonWealth Beacon

Can Hampshire College rise, if not from the dead, from the higher ed death watch list? Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen has predicted that as many as half of all US colleges and universities will close or go bankrupt over the next decade, and a year ago it looked like Hampshire would be one of them. The Amherst college, founded in 1970 with a commitment to rethinking traditional...

There’s a back to the future feel to some of the changes taking place in US health care, and Atrius Health, which provides care to some 740,000 patients, is a leading player in that effort in Massachusetts. After years of soaring health care costs, there is growing interest in moving away from the fee-for-service model that has long dominated care, where providers are paid for each patient interac...

There is a struggle going on for the soul of the Massachusetts Republican Party between Trump loyalists who control the party apparatus and a more moderate brand of Republicanism espoused by Gov. Charlie Baker. The state party is headed by Jim Lyons, a social and economic conservative who said in a recent email to state Republicans that President Trump’s economy is working for Massachusetts reside...

The Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s “City to City” program sets out to take Boston civic and business leaders to other cities so they can expand their thinking on challenges at home by learning about policies and practices elsewhere. Walsh, who was part of the program’s trip earlier this month to Los Angeles, has clearly taken that mission to heart. Appearing on The Codcast, Walsh repeatedly...

FOR THE Massachusetts High Technology Council, blocking a transportation revenue package is a two-step process. The first step, which proved successful last week, was convincing House leaders to put off any action on a revenue package until next year. Chris Anderson, president of the council, argued on the CommonWealth Codcast that delaying action at least until January will give lawmakers more ti...

Monica Bharel, the state’s public health commissioner, is definitely a glass-half-full type of person. On the Health or Consequences edition of the Codcast with Paul Hattis of Tufts University Medical School and John McDonough of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Bharel went through a series of major challenges facing her agency and in each instance ended her discussion on an optimistic...

In this second installment of MassINC Insights, we hear from the journalists and thought leaders of MassINC about the education funding debate. As lawmakers on Beacon Hill approach agreement on a school finance package, MassINC members dig in to the history of Massachusetts school funding that’s led up to this landmark bill. Plus, a piece of the legislation calls for schools’ accountability for th...

The derailment on the Red Line in June may have been a turning point. After Gov. Charlie Baker visited the crash site, he decided it was time to accelerate repairs on the MBTA and greenlight more shutdowns of the system to speed up projects. The derailment also galvanized the debate over new transportation revenues – for the MBTA and the state as a whole. The state’s business organizations weighed...

This week on The Codcast, we bring you an episode of MassINC Insights, the first installment in a series of conversations with the journalists, researchers, and pollsters of MassINC, The MassINC Polling Group and CommonWealth. The nonprofit consistently leads the way in producing nonpartisan research and independent reporting that make serious waves in the Bay State. And today, we're pulling back...

JAY KAUFMAN, THE former state rep from Lexington, remembers a conversation he had with House Speaker Robert DeLeo the last time the Legislature considered raising taxes to pay for transportation. It was 2013, the morning before the House vote on a bill that would raise the gas tax 3 cents, index that tax to inflation (later rescinded by voters), jack up tobacco taxes, and impose a tax (later jetti...

Richard Parr, the research director of the MassINC Polling Group, said he was surprised at the strong support in a statewide, online poll for regional rail and a number of other ambitious transportation initiatives, including an underground rail link connecting North and South Stations. The most popular initiative was transitioning the commuter rail fleet from diesel to electric power. The poll al...

SUFFOLK COUNTY Sheriff Steve Tompkins insists his decision to sever ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement had nothing to do with protests, and everything to do whether the people in his jail’s cells are destined to remain in the state. “I was hired to do local, not federal work. The ICE population is transient — they’re not staying here,” Tompkins said on CommonWealth’s Codcast. “But the l...

Congresswoman Katherine Clark supports the idea of opening facilities where people can use illegal drugs under medical supervision to prevent overdose fatalities and refer people to treatment for drug addiction when they are ready. “These sites, in particular, if it is saving some lives, if it is allowing us to have the intervention to stop this cycle before a person does lose their life to an ove...