Author: Cindy Friedman

Legislative leaders are pushing for the allocation of $10 million to a new trust fund that would be used for a public awareness campaign and loan forgiveness program for mental health professionals. The proposal is the start of what senators say will be wide-ranging effort in reshaping how mental health care is accessed, treated and understood throughout the state.

Sen. Cindy Friedman, the chair of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, said the newest loan program is trying to solve job shortages driven by low reimbursement to certain providers.

“Historically the rates for behavioral health providers are significantly lower than they are for most medical/surgical,” said Friedman, an Arlington Democrat. “This is causing a huge issue with workforce, and getting people to actually work in this field. They can’t afford to work in it. Either the rates are so low and the administrative burden is so high they stop taking insurance, or they leave the field altogether.”

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Members of the Arlington community packed Town Hall early Monday evening to express solidarity with a local Jewish family, who had their Lake Street home set on fire twice in the last week.

Speakers included Town Manager Adam Chapdelaine, Acting Chief of Police Julie Flaherty, Robert Treston of the Anti-Defmation League and State Senator Cindy Friedman.

“Each day people fight harder and harder to ensure that everyone in our community feels welcome,” Friedman said. “In trying times such as these we must stick together and support one another. We have to continue to demonstrate that we are a welcoming and inclusive community. Despite all the bad things going on in the world right now, I am continuously encouraged by the individuals in our community that consistently display what Arlington is about.”

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When police officers lay it all on the line and are severely injured while protecting the people of the commonwealth, we owe it to them to come to their aid with the same urgency they showed in coming to ours.

In 2011, Woburn Police Officer Robert DiNapoli was shot six times during a botched jewelry store robbery. But, as the Herald’s Mary Markos reported, though DeNapoli got the medical attention that was needed to keep him alive, he received no such aid in the process of collecting the benefits he and his family would need to survive afterwards.

DeNapoli and Oliveira went on to co-found the Violently Injured Police Officers organization, which provides support for law enforcement officers who have sustained serious, lasting injuries in the line of duty. They are now pushing a piece of legislation filed by state Sen. Cindy Friedman that would give severely injured police officers 100 percent of their regular pay until they reach retirement age and then 80 percent of their pension.

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Being shot point-blank six times wasn’t as painful as trying to get a payment package from the city for a former Somerville police and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent, who was forced to retire because of his line-of-duty injuries.

DeNapoli and Oliveira, co-founders of the Violently Injured Police Officers organization, are pushing for a piece of legislation filed by Sen. Cindy Friedman. The bill would give severely injured police officers 100% of their regular pay until they reach retirement age and then 80% of their pension.

“It’s really unfair,” Friedman said. “If they are no longer able to do that job because, in the process of doing what we expect them to do they get so critically injured that they can’t do that job anymore, then I think it’s fair for us to say, “Okay, we need to step in here.”

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Exactly half of Massachusetts residents support the idea of opening supervised consumption sites in the state. A WBUR poll found 43% oppose such clinics, where drug use is monitored to prevent or reverse an overdose. And 8% of 660 adults (topline results, crosstabs) declined to respond or were undecided.

In Massachusetts, state Sen. Cindy Friedman of Arlington and several colleagues are drafting legislation based on the commission recommendation to create one or more supervised consumption pilots. “We’ve got to try everything we can to try to help these people stay alive and get treatment,” Friedman says. “We should be seeing if it will work here.”

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A new WBUR poll shows that the opioid epidemic is hitting more and more Massachusetts residents close to home. The survey also suggests that most state residents aren’t on board with a controversial law that allows the state to use jails and prisons to involuntarily commit some men to addiction treatment.

A state commission set up last year to review the law — called Section 35 — is expected to deliver a preliminary report next week. Among the members of that commission is Democratic state Sen. Cindy Friedman, who says jails are not the right place to treat people struggling with addiction.

“I understand that, in some cases, we need to just get people into a safe place,” she said. “But it’s all treatment-focused; it’s all about getting people healthy and in treatment. And I firmly believe that can’t happen in an environment where the structure is about corrections and punishment.”

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THE CO-CHAIRS OF THE Legislature’s Joint Committee on Health Care Financing may be new to their posts, but both seem to grasp the urgency of tackling big issues facing the state’s health care sector and both sound optimistic about solutions to some thorny problems emerging in the current session on Beacon Hill.

“This is a very, very, very big issue, and it is not something that we’re going to be able to skirt if we really are going to address health care costs,” said Friedman. She said there’s a need to address issues “at both ends of that spectrum” — dealing both with the much higher costs charged by big teaching hospitals while also making sure community hospitals aren’t bringing inefficiency to the overall system by trying to add costly services already provided elsewhere.

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Meg Arnould said she always took pride in her meticulous record keeping for her therapy sessions. Then the Easthampton therapist was hit with a letter from an insurance company demanding $28,000. The company, who had recently reviewed six years of Arnould’s patient records, was issuing a retroactive claim denial.

While health care providers have to meet billing deadlines, insurance companies don’t have any deadlines for auditing clinicians and demanding payment years later, said Sen. Cindy Friedman, an Arlington Democrat who introduced S.589. Some insurance companies have directed third-party companies to pursue the retroactive payments.

“This has a chilling effect on how healthcare providers practice, discouraging many from take insurance, ultimately impacting patients’ access to service,” she said.

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BOSTON – A bill that would expand women’s reproductive rights and loosen restrictions on abortions has ignited debate on Beacon Hill.

Supporters say the bill, commonly known as “the ROE Act,” would increase access to women’s reproductive health. Opponents, however, are concerned because the legislation would eliminate parental control for minors and allow for later abortions, with some going as far as calling it an “infanticide bill.”

Although Sen. Cindy Friedman, D-Arlington, said, as a mother, she wasn’t completely comfortable with the lack of parental control, she feels strongly that the state needs to protect women and girls who need it.

“Nobody should make determinations over someone’s body other than that person or their medical professional,” she said. “It’s my body, my decision. And I feel that very strongly…Women have to be able to control their lives and their futures.”

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