AMHERST — Nearly one in three Americans carries medical debt, a figure that public employees in Massachusetts worry could increase if Gov. Maura Healey’s proposal to cut the state’s Group Insurance Commission by $100 million is approved this week.
The proposed changes would boost health care costs by increasing deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket expenses while eliminating benefits including GLP-1s for weight management. According to several panelists and speakers at a Tuesday evening rally at the University of Massachusetts Amherst — held in tandem with an educators rally in Arlington — these cuts would significantly harm public employees and their families.
Attendees implored the GIC’s 17 commissioners to vote “no” to the proposed cost increases and benefit cuts. The GIC is scheduled to vote on the changes Thursday morning.
“We’re human … we don’t have unlimited resources,” said Heather Wernimont, a panelist at the rally and a teacher in Springfield. “We’re all facing higher energy costs, higher housing costs, food, etc. We can’t afford to also have to pay more for our health care.”
Established by the Legislature in 1955, the GIC is a quasi-independent state agency governed by a 17-member commission appointed by the governor. With over 280,000 subscribers and 460,000 members, the GIC provides and administers health insurance and other benefits to the commonwealth’s employees and retirees, and their dependents and survivors. The group also provides coverage to participating municipalities, housing, and redevelopment authorities’ personnel.
Even municipalities that don’t buy insurance through the GIC could be affected by the changes proposed by Healey. Under state law, a municipality or joint purchasing group may increase employee copays and deductibles up to the GIC benchmark plan, according to the Massachusetts Teachers Association’s website. The changes would affect municipal employees including police and fire, DPW workers and paraprofessionals, among others.
Locally, Northampton and Springfield offer municipal employee insurance coverage through the GIC, and Chesterfield is slated to begin offering coverage through the GIC this summer. Many school districts and union collaboratives statewide offer GIC coverage, too.
“This is a crucial moment to defend health care,” said Max Page, president of the MTA.
Massachusetts is the wealthiest state in the nation. There’s “plenty of money in the bank,” said Page, including $8 billion sitting in the state’s rainy day fund.
“If we use $3 billion of that $8 billion of our fund to invest in schools and colleges and keep health care costs down, we would still be in the good graces of Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s and all those terrible, corrupt, credit rating agencies that everyone’s so worried about,” Page said. “They are saying, ‘you guys have put too much in your rainy day fund.’ So this is the craziness of the situation.”
“We should not be harmed by the choices of policymakers who don’t feel like spending money that already exists in the bank accounts of the state of Massachusetts,” said Nellie Taylor, co-president of the Professional Staff Union at UMass.
“Public sector workers cannot and will not be the ones to bear the cost of this manufactured crisis,” Taylor continued.
Page also points to neighboring states like Connecticut and New Hampshire that have higher taxes for offshore profits, which could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional tax revenue in Massachusetts.
The $100 million in savings the GIC has been asked to find would cover a projected shortfall in fiscal year 2027. But even with those savings, the GIC budget is expected to grow by more than $200 million, or about 10%, next fiscal year. That spike is due to increases in costs of specialty drugs, GLP-1s, and provider prices.
The Healey-Driscoll administration did not prescribe how the GIC should achieve the $100 million in savings, according to the state’s administration and finance office.
A spokesperson for the state’s administration and finance office pointed out in an email on Tuesday that Massachusetts is the best state in the country for health care, and that starts with access to quality, affordable health insurance. However, they said, the state is not immune to trends seen in the public and private sectors around the country where the cost of providing health insurance to employees has been growing at unsustainable levels.
As a result, the spokesman said, “The budget filed by the Healey-Driscoll administration for Fiscal Year 2027 takes a responsible approach toward providing state and municipal employees insured through the Group Insurance Commission access to comprehensive health plans with affordable premiums that are affordable long-term for both our employees and the state.”
Dean Robinson, who moderated the rally at UMass on Tuesday, is one of 17 commissioners who make up the GIC. He vowed to vote “no” on the proposal.
“It’s unfair to public sector workers who dedicate their careers and service to the public good,” Robinson said.
“If we vote ‘no,’ the Legislature has to fund as it currently is and we have time to focus more upstream,” he continued. “We can address this readily in terms of budget in the short term and address prices and affordability in the long term.”
Nearly 500,000 state and municipal employees, retirees and their families get health coverage through GIC plans. Rather than passing rising health care costs onto the consumers, Robinson said state agencies could negotiate with providers and pharmaceutical companies to lower prices.
“I’m not going to stay silent and I’m not going to allow for benefits to be permanently cut,” Wernimont said. “There will be consequences if that happens.”
Wernimont’s husband, also a teacher, suffers from significant hearing loss and relies on hearing aids. Without them, he wouldn’t be able to hear his students or teach — and if the GIC votes “yes” to the proposed changes, their insurance would no longer cover his replacement hearing aids, which would instead become an out-of-pocket expense.
Sheila Gilmour, president of the University Staff Association at UMass, said none of the 800 workers in the union she represents make enough to live in the three counties closest to UMass as it is. Many have roommates or live with parents or their grown children to make ends meet.
“Now they’re talking about these out-of-pocket costs doubling for some people,” she said. Already, one in five of her union members have to work a second job to pay their bills.
“We feel ashamed of it,” she said. “We don’t want to talk about it. We’re treated as if this is some moral failing on us because we spend too much money on things like avocado toast… but health care, we [as a society] don’t talk about that being expensive.”
Gov. Healey last month announced the formation of a Health Care Affordability Working Group to find longer-term, systemwide strategies to reduce health care costs for patients, families and employers. But union members at Tuesday’s rally worried that cuts made to health care benefits now could result in higher health care costs long-term if people seek less preventive treatment and diseases aren’t caught early, which could also lead to more absenteeism from work.
“We can’t put the cost of the budget change on the people who are working for [the public],” said panelist Sarah Babcock, a representative from the UMass Staff Association. “You can’t expect us to do our job as well as we could if we’re constantly stressing about making ends meet.”
Following the rally, Page said he felt energized by the turnout and support from educators and unions across the state.
Thursday’s GIC vote needs a simple majority for or against Healey’s proposed health care plan changes, and while several commissioners have publicly spoken both for and against the changes, Page is hopeful the GIC will secure nine “no” votes.
“This is not the way to improve health care,” Page said.
Reporter Scott Merzbach contributed to this report.