Don Berwick (D), Candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, Discusses Healthcare Policy with David E. Williams

BOSTON - March 5, 2014 - PRLog -- Dr. Don Berwick left the Institute for Healthcare Improvement to run the federal Medicare program. Now he's back in Massachusetts, running for Governor. Berwick spoke recently with David E. Williams of the Health Business Blog. The interview has been posted at http://healthbusinessblog.com/2014/03/05/don-berwick-cand...

Williams’ interview with Berwick, which is the fifth in a series that will feature each of Massachusetts’ nine gubernatorial candidates, covered a variety of important healthcare topics including: healthcare reform, cost containment, price disparities, health information technology, children's health, Hepatitis C, and more. Some of Berwick's remarks are excerpted below.

On healthcare reform:

-- “I’m the only gubernatorial candidate who has put single-payer as a potential option for the state on the table.  I would like to see us move very swiftly to understand whether and how we could move into a single-payer environment.”

-- “The state should pursue what, in my former role, I used to call the Triple Aim: better care, better health, and lower cost through improvements.”

On access to expensive medications for Hepatitis C:

-- “I abhor the concept of rationing.  I think there’s no way we should be withholding any effective treatments from patients.”

-- “We have to recover money from ineffective care, wasteful care, and harmful care.  We need to work very hard to make sure that we have the resources liberated from health care waste, so we can rededicate them to things like proper Hepatitis C care.”

On the relevance of his experience at CMS:

-- “I loved running CMS. It’s the largest agency by budget in the federal government at $800 billion.  It’s 5,500 employees.”

-- “We will work very hard on excellence and quality in operations of the state government, from top to bottom, end-to-end, and I will personally invest in that as I did in leading CMS.  What I learned there is that it works in government just as it does in the private sector, if you’ve got a leader that understands that.”

Williams said, “I initiated this interview series to provide Massachusetts voters with an opportunity to hear Dr. Berwick and the other candidates provide detailed views on healthcare issues, which are so central to this state.”

A complete, no-cost podcast of the interview is available for immediate download from Williams’ award-winning Health Business Blog at http://healthbusinessblog.com/2014/03/05/don-berwick-cand...  . A transcript is also available.

Interviews with Massachusetts' eight other gubernatorial candidates will be uploaded to the blog over the next two weeks.

For more information or media inquiries, contact David E. Williams via the Health Business Group (http://www.healthbusinessgroup.com/contact) or via Twitter (@HealthBizBlog).

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About the Health Business Blog:

The Health Business Blog is an award-winning weblog written by David E. Williams, president of the Health Business Group, a health care business strategy consulting firm. The blog has published more than 3,500 posts and 100 podcast interviews since 2005. http://www.healthbusinessblog.com and @HealthBizBlog

About the Health Business Group:

Health Business Group is a leading strategy consulting firm advising companies, non-profits and investors in health care services, health information technology, and pharmaceutical services. Client service professionals average more than 15 years of health care consulting, industry and start-up experience. For more information visit http://www.healthbusinessgroup.com