Lessons from Springfield

May 13, 2009

Robert L. Carey (Principal, RL Carey Consulting)

The Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management at UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School of Policy Studies and the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government commissioned and funded this report by Robert L. Carey, an expert on Massachusetts health insurance costs, to assess the effects of aggressive efforts by the Springfield Financial Control Board to control increases in the City’s health insurance costs. These efforts, the study concludes, yielded significant savings. The lessons of Springfield’s experience are particularly timely and instructive for other Massachusetts municipalities and state policymakers struggling to control government costs.

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