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Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
The Boston Foundation and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation today issued a major report that compares municipal health plan benefits with plans for state employees, federal workers, and private sector employees.
The report documents that low co-pays and deductibles in municipal employee health plans are the major reason why cities and towns have seen their health costs rise at unsustainable rates over the past decade.
“Municipalities need the tools to respond to their skyrocketing health insurance costs,” the report concludes. “The Legislature must provide local officials the authority to adjust plan design outside of collective bargaining – the same authority the state has with its employees – to help Massachusetts cities and towns manage the cost of premiums while still providing benefits that are at least comparable with those enjoyed by state employees.
“Without action, communities will be forced to make even more painful and severe cuts to education and other basic services.”
The report, “Municipal Health Plans: Gilded Benefits from a Bygone Era,” confirms that municipal leaders are acting in the best interests of their taxpayers and employees in pushing for plan design control.
The study examined the employee health benefits in 14 economically diverse communities, ranging from small to large. It found that municipal health care costs are increasing by an average of 10.8 percent annually since 2001, which means they have more than doubled in seven years and nearly tripled in 10 years.
At a Boston Foundation forum held this morning to release the report, Revere Mayor Thomas Ambrosino said, “I can’t say that anything in the report was a surprise to me or probably any other municipal official. We have been dealing with this problem for many years now.
“In many years, all of the money that I can raise under Proposition 2 ½, which in Revere is about $1.6 million, every dollar of that is going to the increase in group health insurance costs … leaving nothing for all of the other 200 line items in my budget.”
Also at the forum, Rep. Stephen Kulik of Worthington said, “Having this study will really turn a lot of heads [in the Legislature], in terms of understanding really what the dollar impact is for cities and towns, and how different these plans are.
“It couldn’t come at a better time, because we’re committed to working on this issue in the House in the next few weeks.”
The report compared municipal premiums and cost sharing for 28 municipal government plans, two state plans, one federal plan, and the average benefits in plans found in a 2010 statewide survey of employer benefits conducted by Associated Industries of Massachusetts. The report was written by Bob Carey of RLCarey Consulting, the former director of planning and development for the state Connector Authority.
• Download “Municipal Health Plans: Gilded Benefits from a Bygone Era” (1.4M PDF)