HAVERHILL — Call them the icebreakers. Mayor James Fiorentini is hoping they are trendsetters.
Three School Committee members are the first school employees to agree to switch to the city's new health care plan.
Scott Wood Jr., Shaun Toohey and Paul Magliocchetti volunteered at last week's School Committee to take the Blue Cross Blue Shield Value plan, which is designed to save the city $1.6 million annually once all city and school workers are enrolled. The savings are to come from higher co-payments and premiums for workers.
Next up: the teachers union and its more than 600 members, where the greatest potential health reform savings lie.
The Eagle-Tribune had reported that Wood and Toohey were the only School Committee members who take city health insurance, based on information provided by school officials. At last week's School Committee meeting, however, Magliocchetti said he also takes city insurance for himself, his wife and children.
The mayor has been pushing all city and school workers to join the new plan, and he recently chastised Wood and Toohey for their slow response to his request to switch plans.
Prior to the School Committee meeting, Fiorentini produced a legal opinion from City Solicitor William Cox that the mayor could switch the School Committee members into the new plan without their consent. In summary, the legal opinion says the city must make health insurance available to members of the City Council and School Committee that want it, but that the mayor has the authority to decide which health care plan is offered.
"I told them I wasn't going to force them into the new plan, that it had to be their choice," Fiorentini said in an interview after the three members agreed to switch to the new plan. "But that if we don't start reforming our health insurance plans, the city and the schools will continue to have difficult budgets every year."
The three School Committee members said they never refused to join the new plan.
"It was never a big deal for me, but the others with wives and kids just wanted some time to look at the plan and get some details," Wood said of Toohey and Magliocchetti.
Fiorentini has already convinced about two-thirds of city workers, including all police officers, to join the new plan, with firefighters being the last major holdouts.
But the key to saving the most money is getting the teachers on board.
Marc Harvey, president of the Haverhill Education Association, recently said the teachers would agree to switch to the mayor's health care plan in exchange for a new contract.
But Wood, who is one of three School Committee members negotiating a new contract with the teachers, said the teachers want a large raise in their next contract in exchange for taking the new health insurance.
"Even after the saving from health care, it would cost us $2 million more to give the teachers what they are asking for," Wood said. "The days of us giving back more than we get back are over."
Harvey, the teachers union head, in a prior interview said some teachers would pay an extra $2,000 per year or more in co-pays under the new plan.
The new health care plan increases the cost of a doctor's visit from $5 to $15 for a primary care physician and $5 to $25 for a specialist. It also increases co-payments for emergency room visits from $0 to $100, outpatient services from $0 to $100, and inpatient care from $0 to $250. It also increases what some workers pay for insurance from 20 percent of premiums to 25 percent. Haverhill spends about $23 million a year on health care for its workers, the mayor said.
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