Author Archives: Will Brownsberger

Opiod Plan, Part II — Coercion and Recovery

Another big theme in the discussion about the opioid epidemic is treatment — making treatment for the disease of addiction more available in a host of ways. This piece offers background on the issue of coerced treatment and seeks feedback on the Governor’s proposal to allow physicians to hold people with addictions against their will for days or, in some cases, months for treatment.

Opioid Plan, Part I — Pain Medication and Addiction

Early next year, the legislature will likely continue efforts to address the rising dysfunction, disability and death from opioid drug abuse. Physicians face powerful conflicting goals and incentives in treating pain; pain is a real problem and addiction is a real problem. Based on what you are seeing and hearing yourself, are doctors getting the balance wrong and making pain medication too readily available?

Report on the Consensus Revenue Hearing

Today the financial leadership of the House, the Senate and the Governor’s office held their annual “consensus revenue hearing”. In short, the outlook is fair — a continuing moderate budget squeeze with some warning flags about long-term issues. But those long-term issues — health care, pensions, and financial reserves — mean that the budgetary choices over the next few months won’t be easy.

Leadership — the scarce resource in the transportation system

Leadership is scarce in the transportation system in Massachusetts. By that, I emphatically do not mean that the current leadership is weak. Rather, I mean that every management team has a finite capacity to plan and to solve problems and that the range of challenges facing MassDOT’s management team is very broad.

Stricter Seat Belt Laws — continued

Thanks to all who have commented on my previous piece on seat belts. I have read all of your comments and am duly informed. On balance, the comments make me less likely to support the legislation. Perhaps the best argument against the proposed new law is that there are a lot of more important laws on the books that we are not enforcing today.