State highlights: Mass. health care system eyes new expansion; some health program cuts not addressed in Calif. gov.’s budget

Facing challenges in their home state, top executives of Boston-based Partners HealthCare System told a national audience of investors Monday that they will create a bold “new medical model” by integrating hospitals and their medical services with insurance products and by drawing patients from across the country. Speaking at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Partners’ chief executive, Gary L. Gottlieb, said his organization, which owns Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals in Boston, plans to improve medical care and lower costs by further expanding its network of community hospitals and primary care physicians in Eastern Massachusetts (Weisman, 1/14). …read more