Newton legislators talk cuts and health care

 

Newton - Newton’s three women legislators told a crowd of Democrats last Tuesday that the 2011 budget season will go down as one of the toughest in recent memory.

 

In recent months, state Rep. Ruth Balser, state Rep. Kay Khan and state Sen. Cindy Creem, all Newton Democrats, have taken difficult votes on limiting unions’ collective bargaining rights and cutting funding for education and social services in order to close a looming budget gap. While the Legislature hadn’t yet passed the budget when the lawmakers spoke to the Newton Democratic City Committee last week, the three women agreed that the document will be marked with some painful cuts.

 

“When we went through the budget this year it really was the most austere of all the years we’ve been working in the Legislature. It’s always difficult to decide what services and programs we cut, but this was particularly difficult,” Khan said, adding . “I think because of the rising costs of health care.”

 

Khan added that while struggling families in Massachusetts were usually able to rely on a $150 allowance from the state each year for clothing for their children, the House had wiped out all funding for the social service in its budget proposal.

Newton’s other  state representative in the House, John Lawn – a Watertown Democrat – was not at the event.

 

Since health care is rising at a rate faster than the state can produce revenue, much of the money being doled out to cities and towns across the commonwealth is being spent on municipal health care plans, Khan said.

 

Both Balser and Khan said that much of their last legislative session was focused on coming up with a plan with their colleagues on Beacon Hill that would provide some relief to municipalities battling with increasing insurance costs.

 

Both Khan and Balser voted with 109 other legislators in favor of an opt-in bill that would permit municipalities to set co-pays and deductibles for their members, but provided a 30-day window for labor officials to negotiate any changes to the plan. The 30-day limit contrasts the undefined time unions currently have to negotiate changes to their health plans, thus significantly curbing their ability to collectively bargain their health care plans.

 

“It was very difficult as a Democrat because it was a conflict [between] two Democratic principles,” Balser said. “It was one of the most difficult votes I’ve had to take in 13 years. It was not fun the night I turned on Rachel Maddow and saw her compare us -- the Massachusetts Democrats -- to the Wisconsin Republicans.”

 

Balser said that as a candidate for mayor in the fall of 2009, she campaigned to put all Newton municipal employees into the state health insurance pool, the Group Insurance Commission. Balser said as a state employee she is in the GIC and the state “Legislature would not give itself bad health insurance.”

 

The legislators said they are also working on a plan that will control the soaring healthcare costs.

“There is a global plan that the governor has talked about with a fee for services. They are talking very much about what’s going on the national level,” Creem said. “The governor put out a plan that seemed like he thought we could initiate immediately. But there was pull back from the medical community.”