On May 25, 2017, the Massachusetts Senate unanimously approved a $40.84 billion FY2018 budget by a 38-0 roll call vote. Over three days of debate, Senators considered 1,031 amendments to the budget proposed by the Ways and Means Committee and took 35 roll call votes, all but one of which were unanimous. The Senate added 150 policy sections through floor amendments, adding to the 111 policy sections already in the Senate budget. The 261 Senate policy sections compare to 156 in the House. The final Senate budget added $52.1 million in new spending to the Ways and Means Committee plan. Of the new spending adopted, $30.3 million funded local earmarks, $7.325 million was provided for education, $3.78 million for health and human services, $2.725 million for tourism and economic development, $1.8 million for environment, $2.25 million for judiciary, and $2.2 million for public safety. Highlights of the final amended budget include:

Health Care -

..The Senate adopted an amendment directing the Health Policy Commission to study and issue a report on quality and safety concerns related to the emerging health insurance industry practice of requiring the “brown-bagging” and “white-bagging” of cancer and chronic-illness-related pharmaceuticals. A similar provision was included in the House Ways and Means version of the budget...