Posted by Mike Rudman on Wed, May 16, 2012 @ 08:54 AM
A United States District Court issued a judgment Monday invalidating the recent National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) regulations promoting “quickie" union representation elections. Ruling in favor of the United States Chamber of Commerce and the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (of which AIM is a member), the court found that the NLRB did not have the required quorum to pass the rule.
The Court did not rule on the merits of the rule changes or the NLRB’s ability to promulgate such changes. It is likely that an appropriate quorum can be established with the NLRB’s current membership and that the new rules will be implemented once again. Given the current pro-union NLRB majority, it is expected that action will be taken immediately to reestablish these so-called “Ambush Elections” rules.
AIM urges employers to take advantage of this window of opportunity to address the conditions that invite unions into your company and focus on making a union unnecessary.
This means:
- Training supervisors, managers and senior teams to recognize and fix problems before they become prominent features of your company’s culture.
- Creating a positive work environment that responds to issues and doesn’t ignore them.
- Dealing with those problem supervisors and managers who undercut your culture.
- Training your management team at all levels to recognize the behavioral and group changes that occur during a union drive while it is still underground.
- Fixing what you already know ails your organization.
- Training you management team, from top to bottom, in what they can and cannot say when discussing unions and employees right to organize.
AIM can provide your organization guidance and training in each of these issues. Contact Gary MacDonald at 617.488.8348, gmacdonald@aimnet.org for details.
Posted by Rick Lord on Mon, May 14, 2012 @ 01:39 PM
The Massachusetts Senate faces a once-in-a-generation opportunity tomorrow to solve a health care cost crisis that is bleeding the life out of the Bay State economy for both employers and workers.
Our message to the Senate – Be bold. Don’t miss the opportunity. Don’t be afraid to make health spending fall significantly below the rate of overall economic growth.
Outside the confines of Beacon Hill, a consensus is emerging among the employers and citizens who actually pay the medical bills that total health spending must fall as much as two percentage points below economic growth if the Massachusetts economy is to survive.
The consensus among groups as diverse as AIM, the largest employer association in Massachusetts; the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO), a community-based health care consumer group, and several respected academics is that a chronically inefficient health care industry is diverting resources from the 87 percent of the economy unconnected to health care.
Dr. Donald Berwick, the former president of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the former administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, maintained in an article published today that one-third of all health-care spending is wasted. The waste includes “overtreatment that helps no patient at all (like treating viral infections with antibiotics), errors and injuries from unsafe care, failures in coordination (such as sending people home from hospitals without supports), needless administrative complexity, failures of price competition, and fraud.
“Alarms are sounding. Massachusetts hospitals and other providers are warning that too stringent a target will harm care — and harm the state’s economy when unemployment is already high,” Dr. Berwick writes in an Op-Ed in The Boston Globe.
“Undoubtedly, this transition will be wrenching. But no healthy industry can maintain jobs that depend on continuing services that add no value. Health care costs are hurting the economy now, because they keep employers and consumers from spending on other priorities.”
Dr. Berwick notes that the ambitious health cost control proposals from AIM, GBIO and the House of Representatives “are on the right track.”
“Health care can and should begin to return money to other uses, starting now,” he said.
The Senate will debate a health cost bill that would establish less ambitious objectives, setting set a limit of 0.5 percent above economic growth until 2016, and then equal to it thereafter. House leaders have proposed limiting the growth of health care costs to the growth rate of the economy starting now, and then to 0.5 percentage points lower than the overall economic growth rate starting in 2016.
Dr. Berwick’s public comments come three days after Attorney General Martha Coakley, told the AIM Annual Meeting that her office remains committed to addressing a health care market rife with price disparities that have little to do with medical outcomes.
“And while I know there is a lot of discussion about payment and delivery system reform - at the same time, I believe that we must also address the market dysfunction that my office has highlighted in our reports,” Coakley said Friday.
MIT economist Jonathan Gruber found in a study released on April 26 that lowering the annual growth of health insurance premiums to 2 percent in Massachusetts would increase the take-home pay of every Bay State worker by $9,200 over the next eight years. Gruber said it is far from certain that slowing the growth of health care costs will produce widespread layoffs in the health care system.
Kristen Lepore, Vice President of Government Affairs at AIM, agrees with Berwick that soaring health care premiums are burdening the rest of the Massachusetts economy. Far from causing catastrophic layoffs, Lepore said, limiting the growth of health spending will create a system that delivers health care efficiently and returns money that can be used for business expansion, education, roads, bridges and putting more money into the pockets of consumers.
“We have every confidence that Massachusetts can maintain a world-class health care system that people can actually afford,” Lepore said.
AIM hopes the growing consensus around meaningful cost control will resemble the broad coalition that assembled when the commonwealth passed what remains the only state-level health care reform law in 2006 in an effort to expand access to medical care and bring everyone into the health insurance system. The 2006 reform gained support from business groups, including AIM, as well as hospitals, doctors, unions and consumer groups.
Posted by Christopher Geehern on Fri, May 11, 2012 @ 01:44 PM
Attorney General Martha Coakley said today that Massachusetts has a “unique opportunity” to lead the nation in controlling health care costs, much as it led the nation six years ago in expanding health care coverage.
Coakley told more than 500 employers at the AIM Annual Meeting in Waltham that changes in the health care market and pending health reform legislation on Beacon Hill both provide hopeful signs that the commonwealth will limit rising health premiums. She stressed, however, that reform will not succeed unless employers and workers become engaged in the process and make themselves knowledgeable consumers of health care.
“We need you to have more skin in the game and make sure you understand what your investment is and what you are paying for in a competitive market,” said Coakley, whose two studies of the health care market highlighted the cost imbalances caused by the market power of large hospitals.
“The goal is to make sure people can make the choices for coverage and health care that work for them.”
Coakley spent much of her keynote address discussing health care and electricity, both of which represent major cost disadvantages for Massachusetts employers. She said the objective with electricity is to obtain the long-term economic benefits of clean energy while managing the short-term increase in the cost to develop renewable energy sources.
She said that she has worked with AIM and the Legislature to support three major changes to the commonwealth’s energy policy:
- Ensure that long term electricity contracts are competitively bid;
- Eliminate sweetheart financial incentives; and
- Develop renewable energy on a technology neutral basis.
She also reported that her office is seeking to simplify consumer energy bills to give consumers a clear idea of what they are buying.
The attorney general’s address capped a meeting that emphasized the role of education in the economic future of Massachusetts.
A panel of business executives and state education officials earlier told the audience that Massachusetts employers will ensure their own competitiveness by helping students attain the academic background and applied skills they need either to attend college or go into the work force.
The panel maintained that companies must clearly articulate their business strategies and the skills workers need to he
“How many of us are willing to say we are in this for the long term?” said Angelo Sabatalo, Corporate Director of Operational Training and Development at NYPRO Inc. in Clinton.
Maura Banta of IBM Corporation, Chair of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, said a task force of the board is looking at strategies to improve the way schools prepare students to enter the workforce.
“It’s a very exciting process and project,” Banta said.
Posted by Brian Gilmore on Thu, May 10, 2012 @ 12:34 PM
Gary R. Magnuson, Executive Vice President at Citizens Bank, was elected chairman of Associated Industries of Massachusetts (AIM), at the association’s 2012 annual meeting and luncheon Friday at the Waltham Westin Hotel. Several hundred AIM members and their guests from across the state attended the event.
Established in 1915, AIM is the largest nonprofit, nonpartisan employer association in the state. AIM members range from Fortune 500 firms to sole proprietorships, and employ more than 560,000 Bay State residents. AIM’s mission is to promote the wellbeing of its members and their employees by working to improve the economic climate of the commonwealth, proactively advocating fair and equitable public policy, and providing relevant, reliable information and excellent services.
A resident of Duxbury, Magnuson earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware and his MBA from Boston University. Active in the community, he serves as a member of the Duxbury School Committee, and has previously been a director of the YMCA of Greater Boston and the New England Business Development Corporation.
Richard Lord, AIM’s President and Chief Executive Officer said, “We are delighted that Gary has agreed to serve as chair of AIM after serving on the board of AIM since 2005 and as treasurer of the association for the past three years. As a banker, Gary fully understands the importance and challenges of maintaining and improving the state’s economic climate in order to ensure that new investments continue to be made in the region’s economy. I look forward to working closely with him during the period ahead.”
Posted by Kristen Lepore on Wed, May 09, 2012 @ 03:01 PM
Associated Industries of Massachusetts today welcomed a proposal from the state Senate to control health insurance costs, but affirmed that employers want the health care industry to limit the growth of spending on medical care to two percentage points below the overall rate of economic growth.
The Massachusetts Senate unveiled a bill that leaders say will save $150 billion over 15 years by limiting the growth of medical spending to a level equal to the growth of gross state product by 2016. The proposal follows by five days a cost-control proposal from the House of Representatives that seeks to slow health spending increases to half a percentage point below economic growth in three years.
Both proposals fall well short of the more aggressive spending reduction target suggested by AIM for an industry in which experts agree that at least a third of all care is unnecessary – delivered in the wrong setting; marked by a lack of coordination; provided with an inadequate emphasis on prevention; harmed by medical errors; burdened with rules and fraud; or just plain excessive.
“The relentless and decades-long rise in health insurance premiums has drawn the life out of the Massachusetts economy for both employers and their workers. In a state where consumers pay among the highest insurance premiums in the country, we absolutely need to establish a benchmark of limiting medical spending to less than the rate of overall growth,” said Richard C. Lord, President and Chief Executive Officer of AIM.
Ninety-seven percent of AIM member employers cite the rising cost of health insurance as the one issue that keeps them awake at night. The average cost paid by employers and workers to insure a single Massachusetts family though a health maintenance organization now stands at $15,864, according to the 2012 AIM Benefits Survey. The cost to insure an individual is $6,000.
“Some in the health industry argue that reducing the growth of medical spending will harm a sector that represents 13 percent of the gross state product in Massachusetts. But why should the employers and citizens who make up the other 87 percent of the state economy overpay to support the inefficient 13 percent?” Lord said.
The Senate bill would create a quasi-public Health Care Quality and Finance Authority to monitor compliance with health cost objectives. The measure would also require insurance companies and doctors to tell patients what the fee and final payment will be for a particular medical procedure.
Unlike the House, which envisions a “luxury tax” on high-cost hospitals and doctors, the Senate proposes a remediation process under which providers identified as contributing to excessive cost must file a confidential performance improvement plan with the commonwealth. Both bills establish broad wellness and prevention programs, and require the phasing in of electronic medical records.
Senate leaders say they plan to set a deadline of Friday for lawmakers to file amendments, with full consideration of the bill on the schedule for next Tuesday.
Passage of a health cost control measure would again thrust Massachusetts into the forefront of national efforts to restructure the financial underpinnings of the health care system. The commonwealth passed what remains the only state-level health care reform law in 2006 in an effort to expand access to medical care and bring everyone into the health insurance system.
Posted by Tom Jones on Tue, May 08, 2012 @ 09:41 AM
You’ve carefully vetted a job applicant - background check, Internet search, reference check – and are finally confident enough to make an offer. You call the applicant, who politely responds , “No thanks.”
Turns out that while you were checking out the applicant, the applicant was checking out your company by reviewing Web sites that give former and current employees free rein to evaluate and criticize an employer without accountability.
The number of Web sites enabling an applicant to look inside the working conditions and culture of your company has exploded. These socially networked sites provide information on salaries, job security, career potential and other topics that may create a distorted view of your company if you’re not paying attention.
When did you last check your company’s online reputation? If you have experienced significant turnover or major changes in policies, working conditions or benefits, it may be time to do so. Now is also the time to incorporate an online reputation review into your hiring process and business reputation audit.
Where do you begin? Here are some popular Web sites used by employees/applicants to communicate with one another about your company. Plug in the name of your company and see what appears.
- Glassdoor.com - “An inside look at jobs and companies.” Topics discussed include companies, salaries, detailed company reviews posted anonymously by employees, and jobs.
- Jobitorial.com - Bills itself as a place individuals can get an inside look at jobs and companies. Welcomes users with the tag line “we want you to have all the information you need to make the best career decisions.”
- CareerBliss.com - Apart from the employee-based company reviews and analysis of company cultures, the site includes up-to-date information on salaries, from entry level to industry averages.
- Jobbite.com - Allows professionals to share their experiences regarding current and past employers, discussing topics such as salary and company culture.
What should you do if you encounter negative reviews? Your reputation is at stake and your ability to hire in the future may be at risk.
Flooding Web sites with glowing comments about your company will spark doubts about your credibility and possibly get your comments flagged and accounts disabled – all of which compounds doubts about the workplace. Trying to find the culpable posters will lead to more damaging reviews.
Responding to this issue requires more a thoughtful strategy:
- Review the online content to determine if any of it is true. If it is, take action to address the issue(s).
- Consider asking select current employees to post their comments, at intervals, on the Web sites.
- Advocate on your own behalf. If your company has won awards or received recognition as a workplace, get that information onto these Web sites.
- Reach out to your satisfied customers and ask them to post feedback on your company.
Speak with your IT department about installing software that will allow you to track Web searches of your company. Once you are notified, keep abreast of what people are saying so that you can prevent problems from developing in the future.
Have you encountered other sites used by employees or job applicants? If so, please share them in the comments section below.
Posted by Kristen Lepore on Fri, May 04, 2012 @ 02:43 PM
The Massachusetts Legislature began its long-awaited effort to resolve the health-care cost crisis this afternoon as House leaders proposed reducing the growth of medical spending slightly below the growth of the overall state economy in three years.
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo outlined a measure that establishes a goal of slowing health spending increases to half a percentage point below economic growth in three years. DeLeo said the measure will generate $160 billion in savings for the Massachusetts economy during the next 15 years.
The House proposal would generate the savings by reforms ranging from paying doctors for outcomes instead of procedures to closing the imbalance between low-cost and high-cost medical providers to providing interoperable electronic medical records by 2017. Employers with 50 covered employees would pay $75,000 less in health insurance premiums than they would if current cost trends continued, according to DeLeo.
Associated Industries of Massachusetts has set a far more aggressive cost-control target, calling upon the health care industry to reduce the growth of medical spending to two points below overall state economic growth. The aggressive target is attainable for an industry where experts agree that at least a third of all care is unnecessary – delivered in the wrong setting; marked by a lack of coordination; provided with an inadequate emphasis on prevention; harmed by medical errors; burdened with rules and fraud; or just plain excessive.
Richard C. Lord, President and Chief Executive Officer of AIM, said employers are gratified that the House has begun the debate over health cost control and look forward to making the case for meaningful cost reduction.
“AIM supports lowering the growth of health spending two percentage points below overall economic growth because in a state where consumers pay among the highest insurance premiums in the country, it’s a goal we cannot afford not to meet,” Lord said.
“We look forward to working with the Legislature and Governor Patrick on a reform that will allow Massachusetts to maintain a world-class health care system that people can actually afford.”
DeLeo and Representative Steven Walsh, House Chair of the Committee on Health Care Financing, said House leaders will collect feedback on the bill for several weeks and likely consider the bill in early June. The Massachusetts Senate is scheduled to unveil its own health cost control bill next week.
The flurry of activity on Beacon Hill comes 14 months after Governor Deval Patrick submitted health cost control legislation to lawmakers. The administration in the meantime has used its regulatory authority to restrict health insurance premium increases to small employers, most recently approving a rate increase averaging just 1.2 percent for the third quarter.
Passage of a health cost control measure would again thrust Massachusetts into the forefront of national efforts to restructure the financial underpinnings of the health care system. The commonwealth passed what remains the only state-level health care reform law in 2006 in an effort to expand access to medical care and bring everyone into the health insurance system.
A staggering 97 percent of AIM member employers cite the rising cost of health insurance as the one issue that keeps them awake at night. The average cost paid by employers and workers to insure a single Massachusetts family though a health maintenance organization now stands at $15,864, according to the 2012 AIM Benefits Survey. The cost to insure an individual is $6,000.
“The medical care industry is broken,” Harvard economist David Cutler said at a briefing with DeLeo. Cutler said the bill is designed to foster change in an industry that “cost too much and delivers too little.”
A study released last week by MIT economist Jonathan Gruber estimated that lowering the annual growth of health insurance premiums to 2 percent in Massachusetts would increase the take-home pay of every Bay State worker by $9,200 over the next eight years. The study also finds that employers could save up to $34 billion on insurance premiums during the same period while preserving an additional $4.1 billion to be spent on jobs and expansion.
Posted by Andre Mayer on Tue, May 01, 2012 @ 08:43 AM
Confidence among Massachusetts employers rose in April to its highest level since before the recession, but an undercurrent of concern appears to be separating the fortunes of larger companies from smaller ones.
The Associated Industries of Massachusetts Business Confidence Index (BCI) resumed its steady rise last month after a pause in March, adding 2.3 points to 57.7. It marked the highest confidence reading since August 2007 and left the Index well above the 50 level on a 100-point scale that denotes an overall positive outlook on the economy.
At the same time, however, employers remain reticent about an economic recovery that has been slow and unsteady. Asked on the April BCI survey whether the recession that “officially” ended in June 2009 is really over, 41 percent responded that “it’s not really over – the conditions and risks underlying the recession remain.” Thirty-two percent agreed with the statement “It is over – this pattern of slow, uneven growth is the new normal,” and 22 percent said “We are still working our way through a recovery that will eventually lead to stronger growth and job creation.”
The responses differed significantly by size of company. Five of eight large employers believe that the recession has ended and this is the “new normal,” while 58 percent of small employers believe the economy remains in a downturn.
“In view of the vital role of small businesses in job creation, that is a very telling finding,” said Richard C. Lord, President and Chief Executive Officer of AIM.
Added Raymond G. Torto, Global Chief Economist at CB Richard Ellis Group, Inc. and Chair of AIM's Board of Economic Advisors (BEA):
“Massachusetts employers are somewhat more positive about general business conditions than they were last April – and a bit less positive about conditions for their own operations. A slow-growth economy, beset by uncertainties, is challenging for many companies; larger employers may be able to accept this ‘new normal,’ while smaller firms continue to hope for a more robust recovery.”
The AIM Index is up one point over one year, 9.6 over two years, and 21.7 over three years. Appearing monthly since July 1991, the Index reached its historic high of 68.5 on two occasions in 1997-98, and its all-time low of 33.3 in February 2009.
The largest surge in confidence during April came in employer opinions of the Massachusetts economy. The BCI’s Massachusetts Index of conditions within the commonwealth rose 3.9 points at 55.8. The U.S. Index of national conditions increased 1.6 points to 48.5.
“The Massachusetts Index, at its highest level since February 2007, has outgained its national counterpart for the month and the year, and in fact has run higher virtually throughout this cycle,” said BEA member Alan Clayton-Matthews, professor at the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. “Recent revisions to the employment statistics have cast some doubts on the relative performance of our state’s economy, but those doubts are not shared by employers in the economic trenches.”
The company-related sub-indices, in which respondents assess the positions of their own operations, all gained in April. The broad Company Index added 1.9 points to 60.4, the Sales Index was up two points to 59.6, and the Employment Index rose nine-tenths to 56.5. Each was, however, off about a point from a year before.
“The lack of improvement is disappointing, particularly with regard to employment,” noted BEA member Michael Goodman, chair of the Department of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
“In April, 36 percent of responding employers reported that they had added staff in the previous six months, while 18 percent had shed personnel, roughly the same as last April; but the share of employers reporting plans to hire in the next six months is notably weaker, down 9 percentage points from 40 percent to 31 percent on a year over year basis.”
Posted by Rick Lord on Mon, Apr 30, 2012 @ 07:54 AM
After decades of talk about the rising cost of health care, Massachusetts employers finally have the opportunity to do something about it.
That’s why Associated Industries of Massachusetts is announcing today a multi-year educational initiative to help employers control the cost and quality of the health insurance they provide to their employees.
The Health Cost Solution will offer briefings, seminars, training, Webinars, videos, online information and other resources to employers seeking to slow the soaring cost of health care that has for years depressed business growth across the commonwealth.
The initiative will draw heavily upon the knowledge AIM has developed in helping Massachusetts employers reshape the health care market in a manner that makes once unthinkable cost reduction goals achievable.
“It’s a unique moment in history. Breathtaking changes in the health-care market are allowing employers to re-think the way they purchase and manage health insurance,” said Sandra L. Reynolds, Executive Vice President of the AIM Employer’s Resource Group and director of The Health Cost Solution.
“But solving the health-cost crisis will require employers to develop a long-term plan and to mount the same sort of sustained effort they put into Kaizen or Six Sigma. Companies must become sophisticated purchasers of health insurance and employees must become informed consumers of health care.”
Reynolds says that the complex debate over health care costs has produced reams of information, but little useful knowledge for employers – until now.
The Health Cost Solution will begin in June with six complimentary executive forums featuring conversations with employers who have compelling stories to share about trying to cure the health cost crisis. Senior executives from health insurance companies and health-care providers will also share innovative strategies that employers can use to manage their health benefits. Participants will leave the sessions with concrete steps they can use right away to limit health premium increases.
Also on the agenda is a two-part summer Webinar series on cost-saving strategies for companies facing fall open enrollment period of health insurance coverage.
The most unique piece of The Health Cost Solution will be a seven-part certificate series developed to help employers and their key managers create sustainable savings and quality in their health benefits. The series is based on our belief that managing health insurance costs is a long-term and complex challenge that includes everything from plan design to dealing with brokers to employee education. It’s not something you master in a quick seminar. The first-of-its kind series will begin throughout the commonwealth this fall.
Massachusetts employers have a unique role to play as the largest purchasers of health insurance benefits. Almost 78 percent of insured Massachusetts residents receive their health insurance coverage through an employer.
A staggering 97 percent of AIM member employers last year identified health care costs as the one issue that keeps them awake at night. Health insurance premiums in Massachusetts have increased 50 percent since 2003, bringing the average cost paid by employers and workers to insure a single Massachusetts family through a health maintenance organization to $15,864 a year.
But the Massachusetts health care market is already moving aggressively to restructure itself in ways that will benefit engaged employers. Health providers, insurance companies and employers are working together to change the way consumers pay for medical care, introducing innovative products such as tiered and limited health plans that reward consumers for receiving high-quality care in reasonably priced settings, and implementing “global payments” that reward doctors for good outcomes instead of the number of procedures they order.
The results so far are encouraging. The average health insurance premium increase approved the state’s Division of Insurance in the small group market for April 2012 is 1.8 percent, down from 16.3 percent just two years ago. Overall, contracts negotiated by health insurers with providers in 2011 gave hospitals and doctors groups average fee increases of 2 to 3 percent, roughly half those given in 2010 and less than in any year since 2005.
Please join us in this unique endeavor to change the course of one of the most troublesome issues facing employers in 2012. How can you participate?
- Take a brief survey to help us develop a picture of the strategies that Massachusetts employers are currently using to manage health costs.
- If you are a CEO, COO, CFO, business owner or HR executive, attend one of the June forums for a practical overview of what you can do to control costs.
- Have members of your staff attend the Health Cost Management Certificate series in September and take the opportunity to have experts review your company’s long-term cost-management plan.
- Contact Sandy Reynolds (sreynolds@aimnet.org) and Kristen Lepore, Vice President of Government Affairs (klepore@aimnet.org) with your ideas and suggestions.
- Visit www.aimnet.org/thesolution for updated information on the educational initiative.
Posted by Rick Lord on Thu, Apr 26, 2012 @ 01:44 PM
Lowering the annual growth of health insurance premiums to 2 percent in Massachusetts would increase the take-home pay of every Bay State worker by $9,200 over the next eight years, according to a study released today by MIT economist Jonathan Gruber.
The study also finds that employers could save up to $34 billion on insurance premiums during the same period while preserving an additional $4.1 billion to be spent on jobs and expansion.
Gruber’s analysis, conducted for the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, identifies for the first time the staggering opportunity Massachusetts faces to redirect excessive health care spending into other sectors of economic growth.
AIM has called for the health care industry reduce the growth of medical spending to two percentage points below the growth in the overall economy, an amount that would limit increases to slightly below the 2 percent benchmark used by Gruber.
“This important study shows just how much is at stake for individuals, families, businesses, and the entire Commonwealth. We hope it will be a further catalyst for meaningful action to control the growth in health care costs,” said Sarah Iselin, president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation.
The study finds that employers tend to reduce or limit the increase of employee wages, and to offer less generous insurance coverage, as health premiums rise. But those soaring premiums also affect the companies themselves, forcing them to cut jobs or accept lower business profits.
Gruber finds that if insurance premiums in Massachusetts continue to grow at the projected rate of 6 percent from 2011–2019, employer spending on premiums will nearly double.
“The Gruber report shows just how severely accelerating health costs inhibit economic growth and the prosperity of Massachusetts residents,” said Kristen Lepore, Vice President of Government Affairs at AIM.
“It also underscores the need for employers, doctors, insurers, lawmakers and hospitals to work together to create a world class health-care system that people can still afford. There has been encouraging news in the past several months, but we still have a long way to go.”
Gruber, in an interview with radio station WBUR in Boston this morning, said it is far from certain that reducing health care costs will generate significant layoffs in the Massachusetts health care system. His study also modeled the financial savings of reducing health cost increases to 5 percent and 4 percent.
John Stowe, president of Lutco, a ball bearing manufacturer in Worcester, and an AIM director, told WBUR that he wonders why the state can’t actually cut health care costs, instead of settling for lower increases. He pointed to the 30 percent of care that many doctors acknowledge is wasteful.
“It disturbs me that we’re talking about just limiting the increases a little bit and not going to the core, and there’s plenty of room for reduction,” Stowe said.