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Mayor Menino’s Proposal to
Save Tax Payers' Money on City Health Insurance Costs
As you know, the cost of healthcare has increased significantly over
the past decade and those costs have led to increases in what health
insurance companies charge beneficiaries.
For the City, the cost
of health insurance has increased by 142% over the past 10 years—by
comparison, all other City expenditures (salaries, capital projects,
etc) have increased by only 27% over the past decade. That’s a big
increase for health insurance and the growth rate isn’t getting any
smaller in the near term.
Every dollar that is
spent on increasing health insurance costs is a dollar that could be
spent on other priorities like big belly trash cans; new traffic
lights on Meridian; the City Yards…etc.
To address this urgent problem that risks spending an increasing
share of the City’s budget on health insurance instead of other
priorities, the Mayor has announced a series of steps to slow the
growth of costs.
1. The Mayor has filed a home rule petition with the City Council to
create a governing board that would approve health insurance plans
for City employees. Representatives of labor unions, administration
members, and healthcare experts will work together to decide the
content of each plan and how much City employees will pay toward
that plan in co-pays and deductibles. This board is similar to what
state employees already have with the Group Insurance Commission (“GIC”).
2. The Mayor has also
filed a statewide version of his local governing board plan and has
stated he is prepared to participate in a statewide referendum
supporting this change (if needed).
I ask that you contact
your At Large and District City Councilors to get them on record
supporting this plan to save taxpayers' money.
Please contact Ernani DeAraujo at ernani.dearaujo@cityofboston.gov
with any comments or questions.
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