In The News: Health Care

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.

DiMasi, for instance, said he's ready to file legislation next month that would allow municipalities - with or without union approval - to purchase their health insurance through the state's Group Insurance Commission, a move the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation says could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

If every city and town joined the commission, they could save as much as $765 million in fiscal year 2013, according to an estimate by the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.

WIDMER: We can't pay for health care indefinitely when we're seeing 10 percent growth each year. That's simply not sustainable. So as successful as we've been here in Massachusetts, on the long term success, the jury is still out.

Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said that while it is appropriate to give stipends to elected board members while they are in office, benefits should end when they leave.

"It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people," said the business-funded group's president, Michael Widmer, who supported the mandatory health insurance law currently in effect. "If the notion is government can take over the entire system and manage it more efficiently and responsibly than the current system, I'm very dubious of that proposition."

The potential savings is enormous. Last year the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation issued a report based on projected health care increases in GIC compared to the average local health plan. The study found if all cities and towns joined the GIC, they could save between $436 million and $764 million in fiscal 2013 and between $1.4 billion and $2.5 billion in fiscal 2018.

It defeats "the whole purpose, which is trying to bring down . . .costs," said Michael Widmer, of Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, to the Patriot Ledger. It jumps onto the same crooked line with public safety employees' stipends for being able to operate, "no brainer" defibrillators (another large unneeded expense.) Widmer continued, saying, Quincy's move is "the perfect example" why communities shouldn't have to bargain with unions to join the state's Group Insurance Commission plan.