Some random thoughts on recent news …

‘How Health Insurers Racked Up Billions in Extra Payments From Medicare Advantage’

The WSJ story alleges that many insurers have taken extra Medicare Advantage payments after diagnosing patients for conditions that doctors never treated. … And now it makes me wonder why my insurer is constantly trying to act like my doctor. … Yahoo has a summary of some of the WSJ’s findings.

Baker’s former economic chief eyes run for governor 

Mike Kennealy, the former housing and economic chief under Charlie Baker, is floating the idea of running as a Republican for governor, the Herald reports. … He’d probably be a popular candidate within the  business community. But Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, would still  croak him.  She may not be as popular as Baker, her predecessor, but she’s still quite popular.

Of craft rum and beer 

I hadn’t heard of the locally distilled Rumson’s Rum until I read this BBJ story about its expansion plans. I’ll have to check it out. … While on the topic of booze, the parent company of Harpoon Beer has announced it’s merging with the New Hampshire owner of Smuttynose Brewing Co. It’s just the latest local merger of craft-beer makers, the BBJ reports.

State’s homeless population soars due to migrants, high housing costs 

Massachusetts experienced the third largest increase in homelessness in the U.S. in 2024, due largely to a surge in migrants coming to the state and high housing costs. … The Globe story does mention that those who were provided temporary housing via the state’s right-to-shelter law were included in the fed numbers, making the term “homeless” a little fungible. 

‘Five Assumption University students charged in connection with ‘To Catch a Predator’ kidnapping plot’ 

Very, very misguided good intentions. 

‘The Rise of the Union Right’ 

I keep saying I’ve read enough post-election analysis pieces about what’s wrong with Democrats. But I keep clicking on them, particularly when they’re about how Dems so foolishly lost touch with working-class voters. …

Update – 1.4.25 — The NYT gets into the how-they-lost-’em act.

‘It’s a Grover Cleveland renaissance!’ 

Of all presidents, Grover Cleveland is back in the news, thanks to Donald Trump. … Until recently, Cleveland was the only president to regain the office after voters turned him out. Now Trump has matched his comeback achievement, as The Atlantic notes. … Meanwhile, from the Globe’s David Shribman: “What the ghost of Grover Cleveland would tell Trump.”

Btw: The entire presidential era in between Ulysses S. Grant and Teddy Roosevelt – Rutherford B. Hayes, James Garfield, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison and William McKinley – is mostly a political black-hole to me. I know so little about the period, except maybe the Spanish-American War. But even then I associate the war with Teddy (and Orson Wells/Citizens Kane, of course). … I do have Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit, but I haven’t gotten around to reading it.