Mayor Domenic J. Sarno sent a letter today to the Executive Director for the Commonwealth’s Group Insurance Commission (GIC) Matthew Veno and GIC Commissioners to share his concerns about a proposed change to health insurance plans that could negatively impact the hundreds of thousands of the GIC’s participating members, 8,000 of whom are from Springfield.
In the letter, Mayor Sarno outlined the adverse impact that the proposed plan design change would have upon our municipality, our employees, retirees and their families. The Mayor respectfully requested for the GIC to not vote for any significant rate increases on product specific premiums.
Mayor Sarno also explained that with major action steps to make healthcare more affordable recently announced by Governor Maura Healey and the Division of Insurance (DOI), it would be most prudent to ‘hold the line’ and hold off on voting on any plan design changes and significant premium increases until Governor Healey’s Health Care Affordability Working Group comes forward with a workable plan to reduce health care system costs. If the GIC moves forward to vote in favor of the proposed changed before the working group issues a plan, GIC members would not see this benefit and would continue paying more for their health care.
Ultimately, Mayor Sarno has urged for the working group to have a chance to tackle this challenge of developing a concrete plan to help in lowering costs while protecting access and quality before the GIC votes to significantly increase the health care costs for our employees, retirees and their families.
Mayor Sarno stated, "I also spoke directly to Governor Healey on this issue."