For years, local governments have been stretched thin maintaining services while dealing with rising health insurance costs. Assemblymember Phil Steck (D-Colonie) has reintroduced legislation (A.739) that allows cities, towns, villages, school districts, and public authorities to join county self-insured health plans in order to reduce costs. This bill would bring more members into a county’s self-insured plan, spreading the risk across a wider number of employees, and reducing costs accordingly. The Municipal Health Insurance Savings Act has bipartisan support with 34 sponsors in the Assembly and is sponsored in the Senate (S.4466) by Senator Joe Griffo (R-Rome).

“County self-insured health plans provide the widest array of benefits at the lowest cost. By joining these plans, localities of all sizes will be able to further spread risk, save money, and keep within the tax cap while still offering the services our families have come to rely on,” said Assemblymember Steck.

“This bill is a common-sense approach that empowers local governments to decide how to best grow their economies by allowing them to join county self-insured health plans,” said Senator Joseph Griffo. “As we put caps on taxes and ask localities to take less from their people, here is a way that can save money and drive down the cost of health insurance. I am pleased to carry this bill in the Senate, and I will work with my colleagues to push for an insurance plan that enables local governments to utilize funds that would otherwise be spent on one of the most costly government expenses.”

“This legislation has the potential to reduce local health insurance costs, one of the largest and fastest rising components of every city and village budget in this state,” said Peter Baynes, Executive Director, New York Conference of Mayors (NYCOM). “Removing barriers to form efficient inter-municipal partnerships, such as this bill seeks to do, should be encouraged. The Conference of Mayors, therefore, strongly supports this pro-taxpayer legislation and urges its approval by the Senate and Assembly.”

“As a community-rated entity, the Town of Niskayuna has realized double-digit increases in health insurance premiums over the past few years,” Niskayuna Town Supervisor Joe Landry said. “These increases, which cannot be controlled by municipalities, use a substantial portion of our resources permitted by the tax-cap formula, causing municipalities to reduce other necessary services to residents. I would like to applaud Assemblymember Phil Steck for introducing this bill, which would provide considerable savings to Niskayuna taxpayers by partnering in a county self-insured health plan.”

“This bill is one of the most important pieces of mandate relief legislation,” said Stephen J. Acquario, Executive Director, New York State Association of Counties. “The state has asked local governments to do more shared services. We’d like the state to reform archaic and unnecessary barriers that prevent municipalities from working together to benefit taxpayers.”

These plans are significantly less expensive than community rated plans, so they will greatly benefit municipalities that are too small to self-insure, noted Steck. Others who have already self-insured will operate with greater efficiency if they join the county plan, since spreading the risk among more employees lowers insurance costs. Municipalities that are large enough to self-insure but haven’t done so can avoid initial costs by joining existing county self-insured plans.

“This bill eliminates regulatory barriers that are not in the best interest of taxpayers,” said Assemblymember Steck. “As governments face rising insurance costs, the Municipal Health Insurance Savings Act provides much needed relief to local taxpayers. The County self-insured health plans have already demonstrated their fiscal and actuarial soundness. There is no reason to subject them to superfluous regulatory barriers.”