ORANGE — The town administrator said this week that Orange will come up $336,000 short on its health insurance appropriation amid rising costs, and the Selectboard encouraged him to explore other avenues for providing town employees with health care.
Matthew Fortier explained the town, which gets its insurance through the Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust, spent $592,000 in the current fiscal year’s first quarter and is projected to spend $679,000 in the second quarter. He puts the total year’s figures at $2.66 million, but only $2.33 million was budgeted at annual Town Meeting in June.
“Health insurance costs have been spiking,” he said at Wednesday’s Selectboard meeting. “HMO plans went up 38% in 15 months. PPO plans went up 40% in 15 months.”
Although Pioneer Valley towns were already facing health insurance increases heading into the start of fiscal year 2026 — a figure that landed at 20% for Orange — and had approved budgets accounting for those increases at their respective Town Meetings, members of the Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust voted on July 30, after the new fiscal year had begun, to increase members’ rates by an additional 20%, effective Oct. 1. The members were informed that the trust was at risk of going bankrupt due to increased pharmaceutical and medical claims and the growing popularity of weight-loss drugs.
Fortier said he and interim Treasurer Ryan Mailloux recommend researching the possibility of joining the Group Insurance Commission (GIC), a quasi-independent state agency governed by 17 members to provide and administer health insurance and other benefits to the state’s employees and retirees, as well as their dependents and survivors.
“When you become part of the GIC, you’re stuck with whatever plans the state negotiates. Your town loses all discretion, the bargaining units lose their right to bargain if the GIC changes plans — things like that,” Fortier said before adding that, due to the agency’s size, “you have some purchasing power. You have some OK options. There’s also some pretty bad plans, from what I saw. Some of their plans only cover, say, three-fourths of the hospitals in the state.
“And there’s a spreadsheet that’s available on the GIC website that breaks down what the plans cover,” he continued. “I think, in general, the GIC plan isn’t as good as what they’re currently offering through Hampshire County [Group Insurance Trust] … but there are some potential savings as well.”
The state Legislature in May passed a $240 million supplemental budget to provide emergency funding to the Group Insurance Commission, which was on track to run out of money.
Fortier mentioned the third option is to explore purchasing insurance through a broker and crafting a plan specifically for Orange.
“There’s no way to quickly switch health insurance to save this $336,000,” he said. “There is a way to switch for fiscal year 2027. We have to get the ball rolling right away.”
The town gets Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance through the trust. Fortier mentioned the town insures 280 employees, with about 60% of those working in the school system.
“There’s no money in the trust right now,” he said.
Selectboard members agreed it would likely be worthwhile to explore joining the Group Insurance Commission. Jane Peirce said she has insurance through the agency and called the coverage “excellent.” In 2017, she retired from the state Department of Environmental Protection as deputy director of municipal service overseeing federal Clean Water Act funding. She was then a part-time contractor working in the department’s drinking water program until 2022.
Member Mike Bates, a veterinary technician at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, also raved about the coverage he gets through the Group Insurance Commission.
