Massachusetts would fund health care, child care, and road services

Massachusetts would set aside money for health care, child care, road services, and other public programs. The spending includes about $1.8 billion for MassHealth payments for individual services, $159.8 million for snow and ice removal, and $18.5 million for higher payments to subsidized child care centers and family child care providers. Agencies would have to follow the spending rules attached to each budget item. The MassHealth money would remain available through June 30, 2027. The child care money would support rates in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2027.

People and political groups could not distribute covered deceptive election messages. Covered messages would include falsely realistic candidate images or recordings, deceptive media about election safety or operations, and false claims about voting, election certification, or endorsements. The ban would require actual malice, a legal test, plus intent to harm a candidate’s reputation, deceive voters about a candidate or election facts, or disrupt an election. Exceptions would cover satire, parody, and certain media activity. The deception ban would apply within 90 days of an election where a candidate appears on the ballot.

The school building authority would use a $1.4 billion annual grant limit and could approve additional grants. Grants would cover eligible costs of approved school building projects. Additional grants would require the authority’s vote after reviewing its finances and audited statements. Reimbursement above 80 percent would require an eligible applicant to earn extra points by meeting the authority’s incentive standards. The reimbursement percentage rules would apply to projects approved on or after July 1, 2026.

The cannabis commission could issue medical marijuana cards to certain veterans using Veterans Administration records. Qualifying conditions would include post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition causing chronic pain, and opioid use disorder. Veterans would need to receive health care at a federal Veterans Administration facility and provide official documentation of a qualifying diagnosis. The commission could issue a card without requiring a separate health care professional’s certification.

MassHealth would have to wait before broadly excluding or limiting payment for drugs bought through the federal 340B discount program. The rule would cover pharmacy-dispensed 340B drugs for managed care members, including transfers of all or substantially all pharmacy benefits to MassHealth. Federal spending approval for a 340B hospital support payment program, or a program with substantially the same purpose, would have to take effect. Policies in effect on October 1, 2026, could continue. Individual drugs could still be excluded when needed to keep MassHealth financially stable, if the exclusions together did not have substantially the same effect as a broad restriction. The state would have to submit its impact report at least 180 days before a proposed broad restriction takes effect.