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Harvard Pilgrim President and CEO Charles D. Baker on Future of Health Care

Boston, Massachusetts, May 16, 2006 – Massachusetts clearly has a footprint in the healthcare space. Our world-class universities have spawned major academic medical centers and Massachusetts has a solid intellectual infrastructure around healthcare. We have clearly been a leader.

Massachusetts’ success in the life sciences has not gone unnoticed, and other places are now mobilized to challenge our leadership, according to Harvard Pilgrim President and CEO Charles D. Baker. Speaking at a Mass Insight Corporate Client Briefing held at Partners Healthcare, Baker noted that many of the Commonwealth’s new challengers bring with them significantly lower costs and political environments that make it easier to get things done, resulting in loss of population and investment for Massachusetts.

Mass Insight’s Annual Economic Competitiveness Survey Report shows that the public senses the trend and has turned pessimistic about the Commonwealth’s economic future.

• Only 32% think Massachusetts is more attractive to businesses than other states; 55% think we’re less attractive. The results are the most negative in the 10 years Mass Insight has asked the question.
• 84% are concerned about the impact of lost high-tech jobs.
• 66% say population losses make them concerned about the future of the state economy, compared to 53% last year.

Baker, who is also a town official, said that with state aid only at 2001 levels, municipalities have been forced to raise property taxes, which has only made our problems worse.

He had three recommendations for improving our competitiveness:

• Leverage our academic assets by improving links between higher education institutions and industry, as our competitors are doing.
• Establish statewide criteria that protect local decision making but put parameters in place for development and permitting decisions to ensure the state’s competitiveness.
• Implement the Mass. Taxpayer’s Foundation proposal that 40% of state tax revenue should go to municipalities to ease their fiscal burden and mitigate property tax increases.

“It’s like a slow leak in the tire,” Baker said. “But if we spend another 10 years being a difficult place to get things done, opportunity will have passed us by.”

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