Healey Targets Major 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 centered extra on following via on previous work than on asserting new initiatives.

The governor started her second State of the Commonwealth tackle 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 lower bundle from 2023, eliminating gradual 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 value 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 centered on the issues that matter to you. We’ll take new steps ahead to repair transportation, make houses extra reasonably priced, put money into training, and develop our financial system,” the governor stated. “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 aid is gone. So, we’re going to proceed to manage spending and stay inside our means, simply as each household and enterprise in Massachusetts should do. The price range I submit subsequent week will prioritize effectivity, motion and influence. We’d like each greenback — you want each greenback — to make a distinction. We’re going to do this as a result of I need to be sure that issues transfer and actually go in our state.”

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

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

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

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 element 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 complete system on secure 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 Industrial Road in East Weymouth. You’ll see extra funding in your city’s price range to repair roads and sidewalks,” Healey stated to applause from a gaggle of mayors. “And at last, we’re going to shut the T’s price range 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 quick point out throughout Thursday’s speech. On Wednesday, Healey totally backed extra restrictive residency necessities for the system.

“I need to be completely clear: We’re dramatically decreasing prices, and we now have, and can, prioritize Massachusetts households. In 2025 we’ll get households out of motels for good. We’re going to maintain working with the Legislature to reform this method,” she stated. “Massachusetts taxpayers mustn’t, and can’t, proceed to foot the fee. 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 few lack of transparency on Beacon Hill and issues with the emergency shelter system and stated Healey’s speech “ignored the headlines of our main papers and the highest considerations of our residents.”

“The governor offered a rosy image of our commonwealth, declaring unequivocally that the state of the commonwealth is robust. Nonetheless, her narrative fell far in need of actuality, obscuring important challenges and ignoring urgent points,” Vaughn stated. “Massachusetts faces a disaster of affordability, with an unsustainable value of dwelling driving a mass exodus of residents. People aren’t shopping for what Governor Healey is promoting, and the proof is within the lived experiences of the residents of Massachusetts. This exodus isn’t 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 concentrate on major 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 major care,” she stated, including, “I’d like to construct an entire military of major care suppliers to be on the market throughout our state, in order that whenever you name for an appointment, you’re truly going to get one. You’ll get the care that you just want, the place and whenever 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 major care clinician.

Healey additionally put extra element round her plan for a successor to the MCAS standardized checks 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 scholar graduates able to succeed. We’d like a excessive, statewide commonplace. College students, households, and employers have to know what a diploma represents. And with out that baseline, it’s at all times essentially the most weak college students who don’t get what they want,” the governor stated.

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 commonplace.

“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 Faculty and job coaching packages that give college students a leg up on their subsequent step,” the governor stated.

And with the excessive value of doing enterprise in Massachusetts in thoughts, Healey stated she is instructing her financial groups to “assessment all enterprise and licensing rules in these first three months” of this 12 months, with the objective of reducing 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 in regards to 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 a variety of 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 manner that advantages Massachusetts, and I additionally promise you we won’t change who we’re,” she stated in the one direct reference to the incoming Trump administration, although the governor didn’t use the president-elect’s identify.

Healey’s annual tackle 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 Court docket and Appeals Court docket; Common 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.