By MAUREEN DOHERTY
LYNNFIELD — The town will continue to obtain its health insurance plans for town employees and retirees through the state’s Group Insurance Commission (GIC).
The vote taken by the Board of Selectmen Sept. 29 to continue with the GIC was unanimous based on the favorable feedback provided by both the town administrator and members of the Public Employee Committee (PEC). Two votes were taken by the board, one to extend the current agreement through the end of the current fiscal year on June 30, 2015 and the other to sign on to a new three-year agreement from July 1, 2015 though June 30, 2018.
Town Administrator Bill Gustus said new agreements are required every three years, therefore, in order to determine whether to continue with the GIC or seek requests for proposals (RFP) to “possibly change our health insurance,” he and the PEC worked together to evaluate the effectiveness of the GIC.
“We requested access to all our claims data from the GIC so we could evaluate our claims that they have paid for medical services provided to our employees and retirees and their dependents versus the premium that we’re paying for those same services to see whether our premium was significantly higher or lower than our claims experience,” Gustus said.
The data was analyzed with assistance from two consultants, including a firm retained by the Mass. Teachers’ Association.
“It appeared that we are already getting the best deal we can. If we were to try to procure our insurance based upon our own loss history we would likely see a significant increase, so it made sense to re-up with the GIC,” Gustus said.
PEC Chairperson Lori Kelly concurred that their analysis determined remaining part of the GIC provided the “best benefit” for both the town and all their members “at this time.” She added that this was the unanimous decision of all the town’s unions and Gustus said representatives of the retirees agreed to it.
Retired teacher Judy Angelini of 14 Orchard Lane said, “The committee that put together this proposal worked very hard and very faithfully to make sure that we got the information that we needed to make an intelligent appraisal of the situation. I’d like to reassure you we did our due diligence. It may look like it’s going down to the wire, but there was a problem gathering the information and interpreting the information.” The agreements needed to be signed by Oct. 1.
Angelini added, “Speaking from the retiree perspective, the retirees are very pleased with the GIC benefits. I have heard no complaints and we were unanimous in our feeling that the best thing to do would be to sign for another term.”
Selectmen Chairman Dave Nelson said he had no problem with either the amendment to the memorandum of agreement or the new memorandum of agreement. “It’s basically what we had in the past.”
“There are no significant changes; in fact I don’t know that there are any changes in the plan,” Gustus said. “All the same plans are included. The splits are remaining the same. The financial implications of this are exactly the same as they were in the previous agreement.”
