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Senator Tucker Honored by
Pioneer Institute
10/03/06
 (BOSTON) - Senator Sue
Tucker’s initiative to provide incentives to reduce
fraudulent auto insurance claims was selected this week
as one of five winners in the 2006 Pioneer
Institute’s Better Government Competition, an annual
competition to spur governmental improvement.
Tucker’s proposal was selected from over 200
entries.
Tucker’s plan calls for using financial incentives
to encourage urban drivers in communities with very high
claim rates to advocate for policies and coalitions that
would reduce fraudulent claims.
It works as follows: excellent drivers that live in
communities with personal injury claims more than twice
the statewide average will be rewarded if their community
reduces its rate of claims by at least 25 percent.
One-quarter of the total savings generated by this claim
reduction would be credited to these drivers on their
annual auto insurance bill—half in the first year
after the 25 percent reduction and half in the following
year.
“Because of successful efforts in several
cities, especially Lawrence, to eliminate millions of
dollars of fraudulent bodily injury claims, there was an
8.7% rate cut last year,” Senator Tucker said.
“In Lawrence alone, the insurance industry saved $30
million. But under our current system, Lawrence drivers
won’t see any substantial rate relief for four
years.”
Four other entries were also selected. The top entry was
a proposal to shorten the time it takes for litigants to
have their civil cases heard before the District Court.
Other winning entries were: a proposal entitled
“State Comptrollers Benchmarking Initiative,”
providing a performance measurement system that gauges
functional areas of back-office operations in state
government; an initiative titled “Energy
Efficiency in State-Owned Buildings” recommending
that all government office buildings can become more
efficient and actually save the state money by “load
shedding” its power; and a proposal to enact
legislation for statewide health insurance coverage for
all municipal teachers.
The 2006 Better Government Award winners were
chosen by a panel of five distinguished judges:
Jonathan Lee, President, Lee Capital Investments, LLC,
Beth Lindstrom, Former Director, MA Office of Consumer
Affairs, Richard Lord, President, Associated
Industries of Massachusetts, Cosmo Macero, Jr., Vice
President, O’Neill and Associates, Robert Stavins,
Professor, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University, Senator Tucker and the other winners will be
honored at a September 21st awards dinner, at the Boston
Harbor Hotel, featuring Charles D. Baker, Jr. as keynote
speaker. Charles D. Baker is President and CEO of Harvard
Pilgrim Health Care, Inc., one of New England’s
leading non-profit health plans.
Baker was brought in as CEO in mid-1999 to turn around
the organization’s financial performance. HPHC
lost $227 million in 1999, but lost just $10 million in
2000. It has posted positive financial returns
every year since 2001.
Prior to joining Harvard Pilgrim, Baker spent eight years
in Massachusetts state government, where he served as
Secretary of Administration and Finance and Secretary of
Health and Human Services during the Weld and Cellucci
Administrations. In these posts, Baker planned and
implemented major changes in public policy that reaped
hundreds of millions in taxpayer savings while expanding
health care coverage and services.
The Better Government Competition seeks innovative ideas
to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of
government services in Massachusetts and provides a
public forum for these ideas. Since its inception in
1991, the Better Government Competition has saved
Massachusetts taxpayers an estimated $325 million and has
been replicated in several other states and abroad.
Pioneer Institute is an independent, non-partisan,
privately funded research organization that seeks to
change the intellectual climate in the Commonwealth by
supporting scholarship that challenges the
“conventional wisdom” on Massachusetts public
policy issues. Committed to individual freedom and
responsibility, limited and accountable government, and
the application of free market principles to state and
local policy, Pioneer is known for developing sensible,
innovative ideas and converting them into action.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The October, 2006
Edition of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
Publication.
All Contents (C) 2006, Valley Patriot, Inc.
We publish 9,000 newspapers and distribute in Andover,
North Andover,
Methuen, Haverhill, Chelmsford, Georgetown, Groveland,
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Beach, and Lowell.
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