MTA urges governor to avoid hiking health care costs for public employees

The Massachusetts Teachers Association is staunchly opposed to Governor Maura Healey’s proposal to underfund the Group Insurance Commission that provides health care coverage for public employees, which would force devastating cost increases on working families.

The GIC is meeting today to consider plan changes that could increase out-of-pocket health costs by hundreds of dollars – perhaps thousands of dollars – on top of regular but costly insurance premium increases for its subscribers.

State employees – including MTA members working at public colleges and universities – and many municipal employees, such as public school educators, buy their insurance coverage through the GIC. These proposed cost increases likely will affect all MTA members, however, because cities and towns that are not part of the GIC use its plan designs to set their own insurance costs, potentially impacting hundreds of thousands of active and retired public employees.

“We applaud Governor Healey’s attempts to hold down health care costs with newly announced guidelines for insurers,” said MTA President Max Page. “And we recognize that the Trump administration and the Republican-dominated Congress have made immoral cuts to Medicaid that are causing budget strains. But the governor cannot balance the state budget on the backs of dedicated public employees by forcing them to pay significantly more for their health care.”

The state does not need to craft an austerity budget if it is willing to generate more revenue, Page said, urging the governor and legislators to consider implementing the “corporate fair share” legislation proposed by the Raise Up Massachusetts coalition, which would force mega-corporations to pay state taxes they now avoid by unfairly concealing profits in overseas tax havens. The state also could draw substantial amounts from the state’s very healthy “rainy day fund” without jeopardizing the Commonwealth’s overall fiscal health.

“Forcing educators, firefighters, public works employees, retirees, widows and widowers to pay significantly more every time they or their family members require medical attention is an affront to the public good,” Page said.

The GIC is meeting today and is expected to vote on any plan design changes at its meeting next month.

“Health care costs are a national crisis,” said MTA Vice President Deb McCarthy. “As a state and a nation, we need to go after the true drivers of exploding costs, including profiteering pharmaceutical companies. involve proposals to extract more money from working families devoted to the public good and who already paying high costs for care.”

Learn more and get involved in the Hands Off Our Health Care campaign.

 

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