MMA letter to senators urging them to oppose amendments to municipal health insurance reform

Dear Senator,

Later today, you will be voting on the Senate Ways and Means Committee’s strong and meaningful plan to address the soaring costs of municipal employee health insurance. On behalf of cities and towns across Massachusetts, we are writing to ask you to vote for the Senate plan as presented and to oppose all weakening amendments.

The legislation proposed by the Senate President and the Senate Ways and Means Committee saves taxpayers money, preserves essential local services, protects municipal union jobs, guarantees equity with state employee health benefits, and grants municipal unions more bargaining power over health insurance than state unions have. This is a balanced, meaningful, and fair reform that would allow cities and towns to save $100 million in avoided health insurance costs.

Health insurance costs are forcing cuts in essential municipal and school services and forcing the elimination of teachers, firefighters, police officers and other key employees from local budgets. Cities and towns will use this reform to provide relief for local taxpayers, protect essential services, and preserve thousands of municipal jobs. Any effort to dilute or weaken the legislation will translate directly into more fiscal problems for local governments across Massachusetts.

We have already written to you asking you to oppose Amendment 73. This amendment would completely undo all reform elements in the Senate budget and replace the Ways and Means proposal with a totally unworkable approach, forcing communities to choose between the status quo (no reform at all) or a deeply flawed process that would give municipal unions a veto over any and all plan design changes. Labor would be able to demand 100 percent of any savings on a permanent basis.

In addition, there may be last-minute amendments that will be offered to undermine or weaken the reform in other ways. We ask you to oppose any amendments that would weaken the reform, including the following:

• OPPOSE any amendment that would expand the scope of the Municipal Health Insurance Review Panel. This is a carefully balanced provision that would have a panel certify that the plan design changes offered by communities meet the GIC standard, and have the panel review projected savings and the mitigation plans. The panel’s composition should not be altered in any way, as A&F would vouch for the impartiality of the third panel member, and no outside, non-governmental group should take A&F’s place. Also, the panel should NOT have the ability to change, decide or dictate municipal plan designs, or impose structures and costs that exceed the cap of 33% of one year’s savings.  Any such change would dramatically and seriously undermine and weaken the bill.

• OPPOSE any amendment that would permanently impose the deeply flawed Section 19 coalition bargaining process on communities, which would allow one or two unions in a community to permanently control all health insurance matters including plan design and the premium share (Section 19 is now a local-option statute that has not worked – communities in Section 19 are pursuing home rule petitions to get out).  The negotiations in the Senate framework would take place with a temporary Public Employee Committee that would have the same constitution as the PEC that exists in Section 19, but the scope of the negotiations would be appropriately narrow and time limited.  Any extension of Section 19 on a permanent basis, or requiring the approval of unions through Section 19 coalition bargaining to decide such matters as joining the GIC, would seriously undermine any reform.

• OPPOSE any amendment that would impose mandatory binding arbitration over health insurance matters. Mandatory binding arbitration was REPEALED BY THE VOTERS as a key part of Proposition 2½ because it is unaffordable for taxpayers. (History has demonstrated that many arbitrators are not impartial and are clearly slanted heavily toward labor, with the most recent example being the arbitrator’s decision in the Boston Fire Department case last year, which granted extremely high salary increases in exchange for what should be routine drug testing.) Inclusion of binding arbitration in this legislation would clearly harm municipalities by giving an unaccountable, unelected outside person the power to set plan design features such as co-pays, deductibles, contribution percentages, health reimbursement accounts, and other benefits, essentially empowering the arbitrator to control up to 15 percent or more of a municipality’s budget.

THE CHOICE IS CLEAR

This is the time to pass a real reform plan to save taxpayers $100 million in avoided health insurance costs. The Senate Ways and Means plan protects municipal union jobs and essential services, while guaranteeing equity with state employee health benefits, and leaves municipal unions with more bargaining power than state unions have. Any money that communities save through plan design will be used to preserve services and prevent more layoffs. Job protection is the ultimate benefit of plan design reform. This is a strong, balanced, meaningful, and fair reform that will make a major difference for every community across the state, and we respectfully ask for your support.

The communities and taxpayers you represent are counting on strong and real reform this year.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

Geoffrey C. Beckwith
Executive Director, MMA