Andover officials want to offer town employees a deal: Find another source of health insurance and we'll pay you up to $3,000 a year.
It's a good idea, one that could save the town a substantial amount of money. Providing family health coverage to a town employee costs Andover around $15,000. So paying that employee $3,000 to switch voluntarily to a spouse's health plan or other source of insurance would potentially save $12,000.
Selectman Jerry Stabile has been encouraging Andover to adopt the Health Insurance Voluntary Opt-Out Program. He told reporter Brian Messenger preliminary talks with two municipal unions were progressing this fall before hitting a wall when union representatives took the stance that any opt-out program must be collectively bargained.
"I think it's going to become a contentious issue in contract negotiations and it's going to get buried," Stabile said. "(Unions) want to use it as a leverage point to get something else."
Town leaders cannot concede defeat on this idea so easily.
The days of employee unions dictating the terms of contracts are over. Andover leaders, if they feel the insurance opt-out plan is in the town's best interest, should present it as their best and final offer on insurance.
The idea that the unions are owed something else in compensation for the ability to choose to accept up to $3,000 to leave the town health plan is ludicrous. If the town agrees to offer further concessions that eat up any savings from the opt-out plan, it may as well abandon the idea altogether.
These times are tough on municipal finances and health insurance expenses are a big part of the problem. The town is projecting $13.7 million in health insurance costs for the fiscal year beginning July 1, up from $12.4 million this year. By 2015, that expense is expected to jump to more than $20 million.
Here is an opportunity for employees who have an alternate source of health insurance to save the town some money and get a little extra for themselves as well. Under the draft of the opt-out plan, no one would be compelled to make the change. It would be strictly voluntary.
Andover officials should look more closely at this idea and, if it's workable, make it part of their offer to the unions during upcoming contract negotiations. The unions, for their part, could show their commitment to the community by accepting it without demand for further concessions.
