August 27, 2002

Washington, D.C.---As part of a fast growing trend, the town of  Scituate, RI will be offering Medical Savings Account to their employees in order to reduce health-care costs. Around the country health-care costs are expected to increase as much as 20%. Small towns and small employers are increasingly turning to MSAs for a comprehensive cost-saving option.

"MSAs are were the market is heading. If Congress wants to do one thing this fall they should make MSAs available to all Americans and lift the current restrictions this would help insure the uninsured and control costs," said Karen Kerrigan, Chairwoman of the Coalition for Patient Choice."  

From the Providence Journal 8/19/02
"The plan's proponents think Scituate is an ideal place for a health-care experiment. If such a plan can succeed anywhere, they say, it can succeed in this homogeneous, upper-middle-class town of 10,500 in semirural western Rhode Island.

"'We haven't really found a down side,' says Town Councilman John Marchant Jr., chairman of the Scituate Health Plan Committee, which the Town Council appointed in early 2000. 'Every time somebody comes up with [an objection], we find it doesn't hold true or at least it's not as bad as they say....'


From Associated Press 8/19/02
"Some residents want health care without having to leave town, at a cost they can help control. A dream? Not to a doctor and some other residents developing a community-based preventive health plan that would utilize medical savings accounts, into which enrollees would make regular payments.

"Enrollees would pay an annual fee to join a primary-care health center in town. The fee would cover all preventive care. They would also purchase a high-deductible health insurance plan, with employers helping to cover costs. 'It's a notion called social capital,' said Dr. Michael Fine, a family practitioner leading the effort. 'When you build relationships between people, health improves.'

To schedule an interview with a spokesperson from the Coalition for Patient Choice, or to learn more about MSAs please contact Katie Wright at 703.683.5004 ext. 132.