Healey Targets Main Care Reforms, New Commencement Necessities In Annual Speech

Guv Makes use of State of the Commonwealth to Tout First-Half Accomplishments

STATE HOUSE, BOSTON, JAN. 16, 2025…..Drawing from Massachusetts historical past whereas additionally peeking into the longer term, Gov. Maura Healey on Thursday night time took inventory of the state’s strengths and challenges in a speech that targeted extra on following by means of on previous work than on asserting new initiatives.

The governor started her second State of the Commonwealth deal with with a reference to the occasions at Lexington and Harmony 250 years in the past this April that led to the American Revolution and declared that “it’s Massachusetts’ second once more” to guide the nation and the world, in addition to a possibility to “know our previous, perceive our current and construct our future.”

Healey’s 57-minute speech within the Home Chamber touched on previous, current and future. On the midpoint of her time period, Healey spent a lot of her speech reflecting on the work of her first two years in workplace, together with the tax minimize bundle from 2023, eliminating sluggish zones on the MBTA’s subway system, and hauling in additional than $9 billion in federal funding. Along with a concentrate on affordability and addressing price burdens on residents and companies, Healey additionally pitched her administration’s plans to implement final session’s headlining legal guidelines, together with main housing, power and financial improvement packages.

“This 12 months, we’re gonna work to implement all that historic laws that I used to be speaking about. We’re going to remain targeted on the issues that matter to you. We’ll take new steps ahead to repair transportation, make houses extra inexpensive, put money into training, and develop our economic system,” the governor mentioned. “State revenues are rising. However we additionally know, it doesn’t matter what you’re shopping for, the prices have gone up. The federal pandemic reduction is gone. So, we’re going to proceed to regulate spending and stay inside our means, simply as each household and enterprise in Massachusetts should do. The finances I submit subsequent week will prioritize effectivity, motion and impression. We’d like each greenback — you want each greenback — to make a distinction. We’re going to try this as a result of I wish to be sure that issues transfer and actually go in our state.”

The governor additionally introduced Thursday night time that she is ordering larger well being care sources be directed to the entrance strains of main care, plans to finish a evaluate of all enterprise and licensing rules by April, and can set up a brand new council to advocate a brand new statewide highschool commencement normal.

One of many loudest rounds of applause Thursday night time was for MBTA Basic Supervisor Phil Eng, whom Healey praised for making good on his pledge to wipe away sluggish zones on the T’s subway system by the top of 2024.

“Once we took workplace, trains had been barely shifting,” she mentioned.

The transportation financing plan that Healey rolled out in Worcester on Tuesday, one which requires $8 billion in state investments over a decade with a heavy reliance on wealth surtax revenues to resolve the T’s looming fiscal cliff, was a serious part of her speech and is more likely to be a serious focus of the Legislature as the brand new 2025-26 lawmaking time period will get going.

We’ll put your entire system on steady monetary footing, one thing we haven’t had for many years. Once we do that, you’ll see the outcomes. You’ll see bridges totally open once more, just like the I-391 viaduct in Chicopee. You’ll see smaller, native bridges lastly fastened too, like Business Avenue in East Weymouth. You’ll see extra funding in your city’s finances to repair roads and sidewalks,” Healey mentioned to applause from a bunch of mayors. “And eventually, we’re going to shut the T’s finances hole so Phil and his workforce can maintain cookin’.”

The emergency shelter system that has been maxed out by a surge of migrants in recent times — and which led Healey to declare a state of emergency in August 2023 — bought solely a short point out throughout Thursday’s speech. On Wednesday, Healey totally backed extra restrictive residency necessities for the system.

“I wish to be completely clear: We’re dramatically lowering prices, and now we have, and can, prioritize Massachusetts households. In 2025 we’ll get households out of resorts for good. We’re going to maintain working with the Legislature to reform this method,” she mentioned. “Massachusetts taxpayers mustn’t, and can’t, proceed to foot the price. The federal authorities wants to repair this on the supply, by passing a border safety invoice.”

Rep. Marcus Vaughn, the Wrentham Republican chosen to offer the GOP’s response, referred to the avalanche of protection a couple of lack of transparency on Beacon Hill and issues with the emergency shelter system and mentioned Healey’s speech “ignored the headlines of our main papers and the highest issues of our residents.”

“The governor introduced a rosy image of our commonwealth, declaring unequivocally that the state of the commonwealth is robust. Nevertheless, her narrative fell far wanting actuality, obscuring essential challenges and ignoring urgent points,” Vaughn mentioned. “Massachusetts faces a disaster of affordability, with an unsustainable price of residing driving a mass exodus of residents. Of us usually are not shopping for what Governor Healey is promoting, and the proof is within the lived experiences of the residents of Massachusetts. This exodus is not any accident. It’s a direct results of one occasion led by entrenched Beacon Hill occasion bosses and their companions within the Healey-Driscoll administration.”

The governor additionally touched upon her curiosity in a renewed focus on primary care investments. She introduced that she is directing her administration “to shift well being care sources to the entrance strains.”

“What do I imply by the entrance strains? I imply main care,” she mentioned, including, “I’d like to construct an entire military of main care suppliers to be on the market throughout our state, in order that if you name for an appointment, you’re really going to get one. You’ll get the care that you simply want, the place and if you want it.”

Hours earlier than her speech, the Well being Coverage Fee launched a report outlining the scarcity of suppliers getting into the first care area, low reimbursement charges in comparison with specialty care, unsustainable workloads and burnout, and sufferers turning to emergency rooms as a result of they couldn’t entry a main care clinician.

Healey additionally put extra element round her plan for a successor to the MCAS standardized assessments as a highschool commencement requirement. Voters in November eradicated the MCAS as a commencement requirement, an consequence that Healey opposed.

“I respect that call. But it surely creates for all of us a accountability, to verify each pupil graduates able to succeed. We’d like a excessive, statewide normal. College students, households, and employers have to know what a diploma represents. And with out that baseline, it’s at all times probably the most susceptible college students who don’t get what they want,” the governor mentioned.

Healey used her State of the Commonwealth speech to announce that she is directing a “Statewide Commencement Requirement Council” together with academics, schools, employers and college students to develop suggestions for a everlasting and excessive normal.

“We’ll evolve to a brand new Massachusetts mannequin for highschool excellence that greatest serves our kids. And we’ll match excessive requirements with nice alternatives – just like the Early School and job coaching applications that give college students a leg up on their subsequent step,” the governor mentioned.

And with the excessive price of doing enterprise in Massachusetts in thoughts, Healey mentioned she is instructing her financial groups to “evaluate all enterprise and licensing rules in these first three months” of this 12 months, with the aim of slicing crimson tape.

“I need it cheaper and sooner so that you can do enterprise in Massachusetts,” she declared. “Once we again our companies, they develop and thrive.”

The governor spent little or no time Thursday night time speaking concerning the second administration of Republican President-elect Donald Trump, a foil to Healey throughout her time as lawyer common. Since Trump gained a second time period in November, Healey has typically softened her rhetoric in direction of him.

The state’s relationship with the White Home will likely be key to quite a few Healey’s priorities, from offshore wind improvement to rebuilding the Cape Cod bridges.

“In 4 days, there will likely be a transition of energy in Washington. I guarantee you we are going to take each alternative to work with the federal authorities in any approach that advantages Massachusetts, and I additionally promise you we won’t change who we’re,” she mentioned in the one direct reference to the incoming Trump administration, although the governor didn’t use the president-elect’s identify.

Healey’s annual deal with to a joint session of the state Legislature at all times brings out a who’s-who of Bay State authorities and politics. Amongst these in attendance for Healey’s remarks Thursday night time included U.S. Reps. Katherine Clark, Lori Trahan, Richard Neal and Stephen Lynch; former Gov. William Weld, former Home Speaker Robert DeLeo, former Senate presidents Robert Travaglini, Therese Murray and Stanley Rosenberg; a bevy of district attorneys from round Massachusetts; representatives from the Supreme Judicial Courtroom and Appeals Courtroom; Basic President of the Worldwide Brotherhood of Teamsters Sean O’Brien and Worldwide Affiliation of Hearth Fighters President Ed Kelly; and former Boston Celtics participant and 1981 NBA Finals MVP Cedric Maxwell.