Health insurance costs for city and town employees increased 63 percent between 2001 through 2005, according to a 2005 survey by the Massachusetts Municipal Association and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. The figure was nearly double the state's annual increase in health costs.
Indeed, it would help - enormously. In Newburyport, Mayor John Moak estimated it could have saved taxpayers about $500,000 a year. Statewide, if every municipality had joined the GIC, they could have collectively saved $100 million this year, according to a report by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
Massachusetts cities and towns could have saved as much as $100 million this year, $750 million in fiscal 2013 and $2.5 billion in fiscal year 2018 if they all joined the GIC this year, according to a report jointly released in August 2007 by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.
