By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.)

As we prepare the budget for the next fiscal year, it looks as if Beacon Hill may deliver us some relief in the form of municipal health insurance reform.

We still do not know what the exact mechanics of the reform will be, but the House and Senate have both approved plans that would allow Somerville to move into the Group Insurance Commission (GIC), and the final version could get to the Governor’s desk in the next week or so. This could mean several million dollars a year back in the taxpayers’ pockets to pay for quality services in this city.

Right now the City of Somerville is a small, self-insured insurance pool. By joining the much larger GIC pool, Somerville can get more favorable rates for some of the top-rated health insurance programs in the nation. Our employees stand to lose nothing in terms of quality of care. This is the same insurance that my family and I will receive, just as it is the same insurance all state officials receive.

As I repeatedly point out, the money saved is not my money and it is not public employee union money. This is taxpayer money we are currently wasting by spending more than we need to for healthcare.

And it is relief we sorely need. The City’s healthcare costs have tripled during the past decade. At the same time our state aid minus state assessments (e.g. MWRA fees and charter schools) has dropped almost $28 million to a projected $29.1 million in the next fiscal year. You are reading that correctly, during the past decade the money Somerville gets from the state has been cut almost in half. The annual growth in property tax revenues has not been enough to fill the hole created by rising healthcare and declining state aid.

During my administration, and in partnership with the Board of Aldermen, Somerville has staved off making the ugly, self-sabotaging cuts we have seen in other Massachusetts communities. We have bolstered our schools rather than undermine them. We have improved public safety and increased the numbers of streets we resurface every year. We have built new parks and playgrounds while taking over recreational facilities like Dilboy Field, the Veterans Memorial Rink and the Mystic waterfront from the state.

We achieved this because we identified savings and made prudent fiscal decisions. We found ways to do more with less. Yet that only takes you so far. We do not know when exactly we can get the health insurance relief. It surely will not come before we have to submit and approve the new budget which starts on July 1.

Still, knowing that we have some relief on the horizon will change our outlook for the FY2013 budget and allow us to look forward. It will not be a panacea, but it will alleviate the immediate pain.

After that, more work will need to be done to control healthcare costs for everyone in Massachusetts. Governor Patrick has broached the subject of moving toward a system which pays doctors to keep people healthy and away from the current pay-per-procedure model. He certainly will have my support if he attempts to implement a sensible, sustainable, health-focused system.

In the meantime, it is encouraging to see the state about to deliver the relief it can to the municipalities that have borne much of the brunt of this most recent recession.