FOR NEARLY EIGHT years, patient advocate groups have been battling insurers to limit the use of step therapy, a policy requiring patients to try one treatment before accessing a different one. Could 2022 be the year a bill finally becomes law? Advocates saw hopeful signs Thursday, as lawmakers started moving a bill in informal sessions. […]
Shira Schoenberg
Shira Schoenberg is a reporter at CommonWealth magazine. Shira previously worked for more than seven years at the Springfield Republican/MassLive.com where she covered state politics and elections, covering topics as diverse as the launch of the legal marijuana industry, problems with the state's foster care system and the elections of U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Gov. Charlie Baker. Shira won the Massachusetts Bar Association's 2018 award for Excellence in Legal Journalism and has had several stories win awards from the New England Newspaper and Press Association. Shira covered the 2012 New Hampshire presidential primary for the Boston Globe. Before that, she worked for the Concord (N.H.) Monitor, where she wrote about state government, City Hall and Barack Obama's 2008 New Hampshire primary campaign. Shira holds a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.
Posted inMarijuana
Trulieve defends response to worker’s death
FACING PUBLIC SCRUTINY of its worker safety practices after cannabis worker Lorna McMurrey’s death, multi-state cannabis company Trulieve on Thursday released a lengthy statement defending its practices and explaining for the first time the circumstances surrounding McMurrey’s death after working a shift at Trulieve’s Holyoke cultivation facility.  The three-page statement issued by Trulieve spokesperson Rob […]
Posted inMarijuana
Cannabis regulators confirm agency was told quickly of worker’s death
THE STAFF AT the state Cannabis Control Commission was notified of cannabis cultivation worker Lorna McMurrey’s death within days of when it occurred, agency officials said Friday night, despite earlier statements by two commissioners who said they learned of her death from the media. The commission also said it had already been investigating conditions at […]
Posted inMarijuana, State Government
Cannabis commissioners learned ‘through the media’ about Holyoke death
IT TOOK EIGHT MONTHS after Lorna McMurrey died after working a shift at a Holyoke cannabis cultivation facility for the circumstances of her death to be publicly reported. Comments made by state cannabis regulators Thursday suggest that, astonishingly, they might have been just as in the dark as the public. The company involved, however, says […]
Posted inMarijuana, State Government
Marijuana regulators grapple with chair’s former company ownershipÂ
AFTER A LENGTHY discussion, marijuana regulators on Thursday declined to approve a license for a marijuana company that the new chair of the Cannabis Control Commission, Shannon O’Brien, was previously an owner of. Instead, citing confusion about whether the change of ownership was properly done, the commission returned the application to staff for further investigation.  […]
Posted inState Government
Auditor identifies $1.2 billion in unfunded mandatesÂ
THE STATE HAS a $1.2 billion shortfall in aid promised to cities, towns, and school districts, Auditor Suzanne Bump concluded in a report released Thursday. The report looked at several major categories of state aid and identified $711.4 million in unfunded mandates related to school aid; $448.3 million related to school transportation; and $103.3 million in […]
Posted inHealth Care
Early data finds telehealth is largely cost neutral
ONE Of THE BIGGEST shifts in health care during the COVID-19 pandemic was the sudden launch of telehealth. Before COVID, doctors and hospitals rarely offered video visits and very few patients ever used telehealth. Suddenly, when doctors’ offices largely shut down in March 2020 and patients feared returning once they reopened, telehealth burgeoned in popularity, […]
Posted inCriminal Justice
Baker pardons four men for decades-old offensesÂ
AS HE CLOSES in on the end of his final term, Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday issued the first pardons of his nearly 8 years in office, wiping away criminal records of four people on decades-old convictions, most of them for relatively minor charges. The four men are Kenneth Dunn, Steven Joanis, Stephen Polignone, and […]
Posted inGambling
Gaming Commission struggling with when to launch sports betting
ONE ADVANTAGE Massachusetts has in being late to legalize sports betting – 36th according to the American Gaming Commission – is it can learn from other states on how to stand up the industry. Research compiled by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission made clear that state regulators are looking closely at other states’ operations. One initial […]
Posted inEconomy
Massachusetts gets $145 million to expand broadband Â
MASSACHUSETTS HAS BEEN awarded $145 million in federal money to expand broadband internet access, the White House announced Thursday. Jacob Leibenluft, US Treasury Chief Recovery Officer, said in a conference call with reporters that an estimated 16,000 Massachusetts locations, homes and businesses, will be connected to high-speed internet through these initiatives. That represents 27 percent […]