Policymaker Profile

By: Elizabeth McEvoy and Colin Zick

In January 2015, Governor Baker appointed Marylou Sudders as the Commonwealth’s Secretary of the Executive Office of Health & Human Services. As the leader of the largest executive agency in Massachusetts, Secretary Sudders manages 22,000 employees and oversees critical health services affecting almost one in four Massachusetts residents. Prior to her appointment, Secretary Sudders, who is professionally trained as a social worker, has been a public official, provider executive, advocate and college professor and served on the state’s Health Policy Commission. Despite her very busy schedule, Secretary Sudders took the time to discuss her long career advocating for underprivileged individuals in Massachusetts, as well as her career-long efforts to increase access to mental health services.

Over the past fifteen months, Secretary Sudders has joined Governor Baker in leading a bipartisan working group to address the growing opioid epidemic in the Commonwealth. Most recently, those efforts culminated in the passing of landmark legislation to address the opioid and heroin epidemic. That bill was signed into law by Governor Baker on March 14, 2016. Among other things, it establishes a seven-day limit on first-time opioid prescriptions and implements early evaluation and addiction screening for patients.

Secretary Sudders, you’ve had a distinguished career in public service. Can you explain how you first became involved in public service?

I began my career in public service as an intern in the Governor’s Office of Constituent Services during the Dukakis administration.  Prior to entering the master’s program for social work at Boston University, I was lucky enough to obtain a work study position in the Office of Constituent Services. This was my introduction to state government. That three-month internship then became the lens through which I would view public service throughout my career.

That was in the 1970s, and it was a different era of politics. Constituents would walk directly into the State House and sit on the sofas outside the Governor’s Office, waiting to voice their concerns. My role in the Office of Constituent Services was to meet our constituents and help work through their concerns. I became completely fascinated by the way individual citizens interacted with the government.  I saw first-hand how the government could be both an effective problem-solver, but also the unintended, negative consequences that some government policies caused. But I also observed the countless smart and talented people working in the various branches of the government. Knowing such individuals were involved in these government processes was reassuring to me.

While studying social work, I completed two field placements with the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, including one at the state’s Metropolitan State Hospital. Before receiving my masters, I spearheaded the creation of the Hospital’s first on-campus residential program designed to help adult patients transition from the hospital setting back into the community. However, I immediately ran into major regulatory challenges and difficulty securing funding in the state budget; these two challenges have been present throughout my career as a public servant.

My interest in social work stemmed from my own experiences dealing with mental illness in my family. I wanted to study social work to better understand the causes and effects of mental illness, and also how to break down the many barriers that make treatment so difficult. I always thought I would work in the clinical setting. At the start of my career, I never envisioned I would be where I am today or that I would be able to have such an effect on public policy.

Throughout your career, you’ve constantly returned to public service from the private sector. What has drawn you back to the world of public service?

In my career, I’ve had four different positions in the private sector. Yet, I always find myself returning to public service. Even while serving as a faculty member at Boston College, I accepted positions serving on government task forces, such as the Speaker’s Task Force for Gun Safety and the Health Policy Commission, to which I was appointed by former Attorney General Martha Coakley. I have always defined myself as a public servant—even while working in the private sector. And I’ve always used my position in the public sector to address behavioral health issues.

You mentioned your experience as a faculty member at Boston College. What challenges did you face in transitioning from direct service positions to academia?

Even though I left my position as a full-time member of the Boston College faculty to serve as Secretary of Health and Human Services, I have continued as a visiting professor at the school. Teaching young people is very rewarding. I have had the extraordinary opportunity to reach students and impress upon them the many benefits of pursuing a career in public service.

Tell us about your tenure with the Health Policy Commission and how the HPC has impacted health care costs in the Commonwealth?

Chapter 224 [of the Acts of 2012] created the HPC. Chapter 224 is a voluminous and complex law, and it will take time to fully implement it. Similarly, the HPC is still in its infancy and remains a work in progress.

The HPC, however, has already had an incredibly important role in shaping health policy in the Commonwealth. In the past few years, it has claimed an identity as a true bully pulpit to raise concerns about health care spending issues in the Commonwealth. Hopefully, the HPC’s attention to spending and other issues will prompt other agencies to take the necessary steps to address these critical issues.

An example of this is HPC’s review of the Partners-South Shore Hospital merger. That is just one illustration of how the HPC can have a direct impact on shaping the cost and quality of health care in the Commonwealth. But I think it would be a good idea to revisit Chapter 224 in a few years and evaluate which aspects have proven successful and which aspects may require revisions. In the meantime, I view the HPC as a good laboratory to identify and examine issues relating to health care as the industry continues to evolve and change. Massachusetts is truly an example to the rest of the country in addressing the dual issues of coverage and costs.

Based on your experience advocating for children and adults with mental illness and serving as the Commissioner of Mental Health, why do you think gaining access to mental health services remains so difficult for so many in the Commonwealth?

Stigma remains a powerful barrier to treatment.

Part of the reason that access to mental health services remains so difficult for so many is that historically, mental health treatment was segregated from the rest of health care. Unlike physical illnesses, there is a lack of consensus among health care professionals as to where individuals with mental illness should be treated. The integration of treatment for individuals with mental health issues is far behind the level of integration that exists for purely physical health-related conditions.

In developing an integrated care model, we should incorporate social work into primary care practices. While the Massachusetts health care model provides a greater number of social work resources for children, it does not provide the same level of support for adults.

You’ve worked closely with Governor Baker to address the opioid crisis in Massachusetts. Why do you think Governor Baker has made alleviating opioid abuse such a priority?

The opioid crisis was a topic near and dear to Massachusetts residents during Governor Baker’s campaign. In each city and town he visited, he heard numerous stories from constituents about the devastating effects that opioids have had on their lives. One of the reasons it has caught the public’s attention is because it has hit all segments of the population very hard.

What barriers that have made treatment of opioid addiction so difficult in the past?

Past efforts to address opioid addiction have been unsuccessful because Massachusetts has historically used jails and the court system to treat these clinical conditions. We cannot use the criminal justice system as a way out of the opioid crisis.  The Governor has always viewed opioid addiction as a public health problem, rather than a criminal justice one. Opioids truly are an “epidemic.” We, therefore, need to approach addiction as a disease, and as with any disease, be conscious that relapses can and will happen. Our end goal should be to design a health care system that addresses that reality.

The numbers behind the opioid crisis are staggering. In 2014, Massachusetts prescribers issued 4.6 million opioid prescriptions. That is approximately 240 million opioid pills in circulation. This number becomes all the more troubling when you consider the well-recognized progression from opioid addiction to heroin use.

Can you describe some of the efforts you and the Governor are currently taking to halt the growing crisis?

I am proud to have worked with Governor Baker to shine a spotlight on these important issues by chairing the Governor’s bipartisan Opioid Addiction Working Group, which made 65  tangible recommendations to address the crisis head on.

Implementation of these action items requires fiscal support. This past year’s budget allocated $114 million for substance abuse treatments. The legislature passed a supplemental budget to dedicate another $27 million toward these efforts. We can expect the new fiscal budget to dedicate even more funds to tackling the opioid and heroin crises. There are also ongoing efforts by Boston area medical schools to increase the education concerning the prescribing or use of opioids, making opioid competency a part of the core curriculum medical students must pass.

What do you view as the largest barriers to treating opioid addiction in a way to effect long-term change?

The largest barrier to addressing and moving past opioid addiction is the stigma that society has traditionally attached to this illness, known for chronic relapses.  This phenomenon is similar to the stigma associated with mental illness over the years. And the two are not dissimilar. As a trained social worker, I have first-hand experience with addiction and understand how addiction can completely transform the way addicts’ process information and think about the world around them.  Many times, all an addict is able to comprehend is where she or he will get the next fix. This kind of preoccupation changes the brain’s function and impacts an addict’s entire life.

There is a need for a long-term strategy, prevention, and most importantly, education. Despite recent efforts to reduce opioid use in the future, the statistics for this past year will show that opioid-related fatalities continue to increase. This is something deeply troubling to me.  Transparency is critical to addressing this issue. Massachusetts should continue to collect and circulate data to make the public aware of how severe the crisis has become.

Do you have any advice for young lawyers who are interested in pursuing a path in public service, and in particular, health care policy?

Well, I am surrounded by lawyers who are not practicing in the traditional sense, but who nevertheless bring excellent legal skills to bear. There are several attorneys working in public health-related service positions in the Commonwealth, including the Undersecretary of Health, Alice Moore; my chief of staff, Leslie Darcy; my Director of Legislative Affairs, Rebecca Brink; and the Child Advocate, Maria Z. Mossaides.

It is easy to be critical of the government or public service, but I have encountered smart and dedicated people working in government. Having spent time working both in and out of government has allowed me to better understand the unique challenges, and opportunities, that face government policy makers. A legal education provides lawyers with a structure for approaching these complex problems and is invaluable.