Massachusetts
Massachusetts and Rhode Island hospital occupancy lead the nation, report says, putting them at highest risk of bed shortages – The Boston Globe
Richard Leuchter, the lead author of the paper and an assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, told the Globe occupancy is calculated by dividing the number of admitted patients at a hospital with staffed hospital beds, meaning beds that are open, available and ready to be used where a patient can be treated by a nurse and a doctor.
The research revealed that the US had a mean bed occupancy of about 64 percent prior to the pandemic. That went up to 75 percent in the year after the official end of the pandemic. Meanwhile, there was a 16 percent decline in health care workers staffing beds during the same period.
The concern, Leuchter said, is that with demographic trends showing that adults over 65 years old will outnumber children under 18 by 2035, hospitals around the country could face significant pressure.
“That is a huge, unprecedented, demographic shift,” he told the Globe. “What that means is that as the population ages, the need for hospitalizations will also increase. Older adults are hospitalized at five times higher than their younger counterparts.”
This could mean that by 2032, the US could hit 85 percent hospital occupancy, a threshold that experts use to determine that a country is experiencing bed shortages.
Massachusetts and Rhode Island registering the highest post-pandemic hospital occupancy suggests that they are at the highest risk of getting to that level, Leuchter said.
“Which is kind of a scary prospect,” he told the Globe.
Hitting that 85 percent threshold removes a safety buffer for hospitals, especially when faced with unexpected surges, such as a pandemic or a natural disaster.
It may also lead to longer wait times before patients can see a doctor, which could exacerbate the stresses on health care workers.
“All those physicians are going to be overburdened. The nurses are going to be stretched thin. The pharmacists are going to be feeling the impacts of that,” Leuchter said. “All of that basically has the potential to lead to more adverse events in the hospital, more medication errors, more delays in care, things of that nature that can have real impact on patients.”
Leuchter pointed out that high occupancy appeared to be driven by a decline in staff at hospitals and not by a rise in the number of patients admitted for care. But another additional factor could be due to an increase in hospital closures and bankruptcies seen across the country, driven in part by what he said was private equity’s foray into healthcare.
“So that’s another issue here. So when we talk about staffed hospital bed shortage, it’s the actual people, but it’s the bed themselves, and we have to address both of those things to avoid a hospital bed shortage,” Leuchter said.
The prospect of a bed shortage hitting the country could be accelerated by how sick people get over the coming years, with trends showing that obesity levels and Americans with cardiovascular diseases rising.
“If people get drastically sicker over the next decade and require more hospitalizations that could precipitate a hospital bed shortage, make it happen even sooner,” Leuchter told the Globe.
But on the flip side, if medical breakthroughs come to the fore that help the country get healthier, it could help delay states hitting that threshold, he added.
One thing that could help, Leuchter said, is an initiative being tried at UCLA called Next Day Clinic, where patients who need more time at a hospital can be referred to specialized clinics, a process than can free up beds at facilities.
“That’s another thing nationally we can implement these models to reduce the demand for hospital beds by about 10 percent over the next decade,” he said. “That’s enough to avoid this potential shortage.”
John Hancock of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.
Omar Mohammed can be reached at omar.mohammed@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter (X) @shurufu.
Massachusetts
Massachusetts brothers, ex-cops, convicted of Mass Save bribery scheme lose their federal appeal
A pair of brothers, who are former cops, convicted of a bribery kickback scheme that netted them millions of dollars in Mass Save contracts have lost their appeal.
Christopher and Joseph Ponzo — ex-Stoneham police officers — defrauded a company to obtain tens of millions of dollars of Mass Save funds through paying bribes and kickbacks to company employees.
Mass Save is a state-mandated program that’s funded by surcharges on utility bills — supporting energy-conservation programs and initiatives in Massachusetts.
The Ponzo brothers pleaded guilty to felonies arising from the bribery kickback scheme, and a district judge sentenced both of them to 27 months in federal prison. The judge also ordered Christopher to forfeit $13.2 million, and Joseph to forfeit $3.6 million.
The brothers then appealed the sentences and forfeitures to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit — which has affirmed the punishments across the board.
“How the Ponzos became crooks and what they want from us is kind of a long story,” the appeals court wrote in its ruling.
The brothers paid tens of thousands of dollars in cash bribes, kickbacks, and other in-kind benefits — including a John Deere tractor, a computer, home bathroom fixtures and free electrical work — to a company’s employees in exchange for the employees’ help in getting the brothers millions of dollars in Mass Save contracts.
Christopher owned CAP Electric, Inc., a business specializing in energy-conservation work. In 2013, he began bribing people at CLEAResult, a firm that picked and oversaw contractors on Mass Save projects.
He later pulled Joseph into the scheme, with Christopher and CLEAResult employee Eric Darlington helping Joseph set up an air-sealing shell company called Air Tight Solutions, LLC as a Mass Save contractor.
Doing next to no work for the company and without telling CLEAResult, Joseph subcontracted the air-sealing projects to Chinasa Construction Services, Inc., and falsely claimed Chinasa employees were Air Tight employees. The Ponzos even created fake email addresses for the Chinasa staffers to make it look like they worked at Air Tight.
To cover his share of the payola, Joseph sent money from Air Tight to Christopher and CAP Electric and labeled it “subcontractor” business expenses. Christopher then bought off CLEAResult employees.
From 2013 to 2017, he gave Darlington $1,000 cash every week and bought him expensive things like an Apple MacBook, a John Deere tractor, bathroom fixtures, and outdoor lights.
And after CLEAResult fired Darlington in 2017, the brothers began bribing CLEAResult employee Peter Marra — sending him cash and gift cards for special favors like getting heads-ups on inspections and audits.
All told, CAP Electric took in about $36 million from CLEAResult, and Air Tight received about $7.4 million.
During the course of the bribery-kickback scheme, Joseph aided in the filing of false tax returns by claiming hundreds of thousands of dollars in false business deductions.
To disguise personal expenses as business deductions, Joseph used his company credit card to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in purchases at Home Depot, Lowes and Staples, claiming to his tax preparers that charges at those establishments were business-related.
In reality, he used the company credit card at those stores to purchase gift cards that he and his spouse then used to make thousands of dollars in personal expenditures.
“Life was good for the millionaire brothers,” the appeals court wrote. “But the government eventually caught on. And arrests, indictments, guilty pleas, sentencings, and forfeitures followed.”
The brothers in their appeal were attacking the sentences and forfeitures from many angles.
“Broadly speaking, the Ponzos argue (either individually or collectively) that the judge procedurally erred — first by miscalculating the tax loss attributable to Joe in setting the base-offense level for his tax crimes, then by misapplying guidelines enhancements to their sentences, and finally by misstating how much money they made from their misdoings,” the appeals court wrote. “But none of their arguments work.”
“Chris claims… that ‘everyone affected by’ his crimes ‘was enriched’ by his work (or to use his alternative phrasing, no one suffered ‘financial loss’) — especially ‘CLEAResult, the supposed victim.’ But… his crimes corrupted the Mass Save program in at least three ways: by damaging the utilities’ confidence in the companies approving and overseeing the projects; by corroding CLEAResult’s faith in its workers; and by eroding the public’s trust in the program — points the government makes in its brief without any denial from Chris in his reply brief,” the court added.
Massachusetts law requires utility companies to collect an energy efficiency surcharge on all Massachusetts energy consumers. These funds, which amount to hundreds of millions of dollars each year, are to be disbursed by the utility companies to fund energy efficiency programs and initiatives in Massachusetts.
Under the Mass Save program, the utility companies select lead vendors to approve and select contractors to perform energy improvement work for residential customers.
Massachusetts
UConn Final Four run could trigger a $50M furniture giveaway for Massachusetts-based Jordan’s Furniture
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More than four decades ago, Eliot Tatelman worked with his father at a New England furniture store. He likely never expected that, years later, a bold bet tied to the 2007 World Series run by the Boston Red Sox would land him on a championship float alongside the franchise’s biggest stars.
As the parade wound through Boston’s streets, some attendees held signs that said “Thanks for the free furniture,” a nod to the retailer’s promotion.
Now, Tatelman’s Jordan’s Furniture is revisiting the idea with a similar promotion, betting on how far UConn’s men’s and women’s basketball teams will advance in this year’s NCAA Division I tournaments.
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Braylon Mullins (24) of the UConn Huskies celebrates after shooting the game-winning 3-point basket during the second half against the Duke Blue Devils in the Elite Eight of the 2026 NCAA Tournament at Capital One Arena March 29, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Emilee Chinn/Getty Images)
The retailer promised refunds totaling up to roughly $50 million if both Huskies teams reach — and then lose — their respective national title games. Eligible furniture must have been purchased from Jordan’s Furniture between Jan. 20 and March 1, according to the company’s website.
2026 NCAA WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT SELECTIONS REVEALED
Tatelman served as the furniture retailer’s CEO, but the family-run business’s day-to-day operations continue to be overseen by his children.
The UConn women’s team faces South Carolina Friday at 7 p.m. ET in Phoenix, while the men’s team meets Illinois Saturday in Indianapolis.
The UConn Huskies are awarded the Fort Worth Regional trophy after their win against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish at Dickies Arena March 29, 2026, in Fort Worth, Texas. (Chris Jones/Imagn Images)
“We have insurance,” Tatelman told USA Today Sports. “We want them to win.”
There are two Jordan’s Furniture locations in Storrs, Connecticut.
Braylon Mullins (24) celebrates with Jayden Ross (23) and Malachi Smith (0) of the UConn Huskies after Mullins shot the game-winning 3-point basket during the second half against the Duke Blue Devils in the Elite Eight of the 2026 NCAA Tournament at Capital One Arena March 29, 2026, in Washington, D.C. (Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
Tatelman reflected on the Red Sox promotion, recalling the bold offer that helped define the campaign.
“We said, ‘Come into Jordan’s and buy a sofa, a bed, a mattress, a dining room table,’” he said. “And if the Red Sox win the World Series, it’ll all be free.’”
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The Red Sox’s four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 World Series ended up costing the furniture company roughly $35 million. Tatelman said he “bought insurance for it.”
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