A couple of weeks ago, when The Agenda discussed Jon Stewart’s musings on creating a safety net for entrepreneurial risk-taking, we touched briefly on how health insurance reform might spur people to go out on a limb and open a new business. “What about the risk of, you’re afraid to leave your job and be an entrepreneur because that’s where your health insurance is?” Mr. Stewart asked his “Daily Show” guest, Austan Goolsbee, the former Obama administration economist. Read >

Stuart Altman, professor of national health policy at Brandeis University, will chair the new state board charged with setting health care spending goals and tracking providers’ progress toward reducing costs. Read >

City councilors were rewarded on Thursday for putting their faith in Brockton employee unions to come to the bargaining table on health insurance. Read >

Partners HealthCare System has struck a new four-year contract with insurer Harvard Pilgrim Health Care that both sides said will help control Massachusetts health care costs by putting Partners’ large hospitals and doctors practices on budgets and limiting future reimbursement increases to between 2 and 3 percent annually, roughly the rate of inflation. Read >

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care is the nation’s #1 private health plan again on NCQA’s 2012-13 Health Insurance Ranking list Harvard Pilgrim is nation’s top-ranked plan for the ninth consecutive year Read >