Jack Spillane's article in today's Standard Times on the relationship between the state legislators and local towns points out a real problem. They don't communicate with each other.
I hope that the towns and legislators can get together on this Thursday at Town Hall and really listen to each other. I think the towns have legitimate concerns about unfunded mandates ...
... but I am hopeful that the session will not turn into a long gripe session. If the towns can present not only their concerns but what they see as solutions or remedies, the session will be more productive.
Frank Gracie, who is a candidate for Select Board, made a good suggestion to me on a way to find common ground for possible regional solutions. If each town would come with a list of the top three budget items that they will struggle to fund next year, a comparison of the list may identify areas for co-operative effort.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
State and municipalities
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14 comments:
Is there a possibility that Frank's suggestion could be done for Thursday's meeting?
The article in today's paper was infuriating. The reps are upset becasue we all don't jump right onto their bandwagon with the GIC! They ythen conveniently ignore every unfunded mandate they throw our way. They also conveniently forget the countless programs they provide seed money for and just as the programs get off the ground they eliminate the funding. These guys are absoultely unreal.
The GIC system does not encourage health care users to change their habits -- to use the system less frequently. Unless that changes, costs for GIC will start to escalate annually just like they do for Harvard Pilgrim, Blue Cross Blue Shield and similar plans. GIC is not the solution unless the state does a better job of running it.
How typical... first complain about them not helping, and when they offer something, tell them that'll never work.
As I remember from the presentation I saw regarding the GIC, one of the stumbling blocks was that you had to commit to it before you knew what the price was going to be for the year. You also could not back out once you were committed.
While the GIC should certainly be considered, and it should be cheaper because of the "strength in numbers", there is no guarantee that it would be cheaper than what we could negotiate ourselves. Perhaps the timing of things could be changed so that we could actually have the numbers to compare and make the best decisions.
I have learned that nothing is easy with regard to change for our town, there is always a stumbling block, and more than meets the eye.
'Big' government - in this case the State, is not necessarily better government. The reps are whining about the muni's not getting into the GIC and yet they could not demonstrate how it would be cheaper for this community. We are 'vetting' every possible thing to save money here in town and we are supposed to 'take their word for it' that the GIC will be cheaper.
And who wants to wager that as the new MassHealth plan continues to grow deficits that some new 'formula' wil not be enacted by the benevolent 'State' to assess money from the GIC to help cover the cost of MassHealth. I applaud our leaders for being wary of this plan.
As for the pension issue, our reps need to be working to eliminate this fixed benefit package and make it more in line with the private sector. That's what we need from our reps, not scolding and finger wagging.
I agree with FrankG. There is no guarantee that the GIC would be cheaper. If the Legislature REALLY wants to help, it should give cities and towns the right to make unilateral cost-saving changes in health plans. Right now, it's a mandatory bargaining issue. And the unions fight any and all changes tooth and nail. Legislators won't give municipalities that power, of course, because they're scared of the unions.
This may sound like a criticism of our legislative delegation. It is not. We all know that promoting the Group Insurance Commission (and regionalization in general) are popular issues/talking points in Boston these days. In a way, our state leaders are doing a good thing by promoting cooperation among communities as well as cooperative efforts such as joint purchasing.
However, as others have pointed out here, moving to the GIC is not necessarily a good thing for cities or towns, either in the short-term or long-term. Our legislators really need to listen to some of the municipal leaders who have been around for a while...and educate themselves about the pros AND cons of the GIC.
As FrankG and others pointed out, the GIC "sounds" great, but it locks in communities and may lock them into a system where cost-containment is pretty much beyond their control. Without significant changes in the way that all of us approach health care, it seems to simply transform a LOCAL budget buster into a STATE budget buster. We should certainly look into it, but we need to look before we leap.
The state could IMMEDIATELY assist all citiies and towns by enacting legislation that removes health care as a mandatory matter for collective bargaining. Right now, Mayors and Selectmen are hamstrung from making cost saving changes that could help their towns and have little or no adverse impact upon their municipal employees. This is not a radical idea, either. The Massachusetts Municipal Association and many city and town leaders have already suggested this approach.
BILL: These issues beg the question...How from your standpoint have our state rep and senator either helped or impeded progress here on the issue of health care costs and the GIC?
Have they at any point offered suggestions to you as to how best to exploit the landscape in favor of Dartmouth taxpayers???
BILL: Please advise on this earlier question:
BILL: These issues beg the question...How from your standpoint have our state rep and senator either helped or impeded progress here on the issue of health care costs and the GIC?
Have they at any point offered suggestions to you as to how best to exploit the landscape in favor of Dartmouth taxpayers???
Thanks.
Our state rep arranged for the period when Dartmouth could join the GIC to be held open for several months in order to give the town more time to decide if they wanted to join. The current opt in procedure requires a super majority vote of the employee unions before a town can join. I think it is 70% but I would have to check that. In any case, even with the extension, Dartmouth made no attempt to get the required buy in from the unions beyond asking the union leaders if they would be in favor. They were not and it was never formally presented to the leaders or their membership.
The cost/benfit analyis is complicated and there are rational arguments on both sides. Once you join, it is difficult to leave and the town won't have much influence as to the plans that are offered. However over time, the GIC costs have been growing more slowly than municipal plans.
I think eventually the state will mandate that municipalities join the GIC
My hope is that the federal government will institute single payer national health care or some other national system.
“Single payer national health care system”?
Bill,
I like you as a selectman, but thank God that you are not a national politician representing me! The free enterprise system would work just fine without the shackles of government screwing it up.
Ri-i-ight,ri-i-ight,
Wall Street, the banks, the insurance companies, the automakers, the energy companies, if only government would get out of their way and stop shackling them, they will make everything wonderful.
Bill, there is ample evidence that the 'government' was too dumb, to invested in self-interest,or both to properly regulate the businesses they already had oversight on. If they had only done their job in the first place much of this mess could have been avoided. No amount of Barney Frank wailing at me will change my mind that either he too had vested interests in Fannie Mac or he was simply asleep at the wheel like everyone else in Washington. Give the government more control? Forget about it. Free enterprise has worked well for hundreds of years and will once again. Nowhere has bigger government solved anything.
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