OA On Health Care OA On Health Care

The decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, while perhaps anticipated, came as devastating news for women across America, especially those who had worked tirelessly and at the risk of arrest and imprisonment to assure the right to safe abortions for all women who sought them.

As the political movement in reaction to the Dobbs decision accelerates today, O’Neill and Associates and Seven Letter believes it is important to use its podcast platform to begin a series on the impacts of Dobbs. The first episode features Susan Webber, Betsy Stengel, and Dr. Jennifer Childs-Roshak.

These three guests discuss their stories of the battles for reproductive rights before and after Roe v. Wade in the early seventies and how the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts addresses the challenges of providing reproductive health services to women now denied those rights in a growing number of other states. These experiences of the past must be considered when working to meet the challenges we face today.

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In this OA on Healthcare podcast, host Joe Alviani of O’Neill and Associates and Seven Letter interviews David Seltz, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission. Rising Covid infections and the emergence of the new Omicron variant only prolong the lingering health and financial impacts of the virus on those most directly affected and increase the burden of health care costs on the Massachusetts consumer. The Health Policy Commission in its 2021 Annual Cost Trends Report recommends a number of ways to rein in health care cost growth, one of these being to cap prices and limit price growth for the highest-priced hospitals. David Seltz discusses this proposal, a new House bill to restrict large hospital expansions, and other strategies the HPC employs to control rising health care costs in our podcast.

In this episode of OA on Healthcare, Massachusetts Secretary of Health and Human Services Marylou Sudders provides a retrospective on the challenges and obstacles faced by the Commonwealth’s leadership in its response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the continuing threat posed by the Delta variant and the importance of getting all citizens fully vaccinated.