Sure, our local politicians have their symbolism — who can forget Bill Weld diving into the Charles River or Deval Patrick’s ongoing struggle to move past the drapes and Cadillac brouhaha. But Canada’s Governor General has taken this to a whole new (pretty gross) level. In an effort to show solidarity with indigenous seal hunters (who are facing an EU ban), she helped gut a seal and ate a slice of its raw heart.

A new study, published by the Rappaport Institute and Collins Center, examines Springfield’s experience with the transition to GIC. The author, Bob Carey, provides a lot of interesting details. My observations: 1) High Out-of-Pocket — one of the typical objections to the GIC is their (deliberately) high out-of-pocket costs. It turns out that Springfield had moved to a new health insurance plan two years earlier that had some of the highest out-of-pocket costs I have seen. That made GIC a lot more palatable to municipal workers. 2) Shedding 5% of Insureds Helps to Cut Costs — By tightening criteria (e.g. no more coverage for the Symphony) and requiring documentation (thereby reducing fraud), Springfield reduced the number of subscribers by 5%. […]

Treasurer Tim Cahill went down to New Bedford and told them: the chances that Massachusetts will build [South Coast] commuter rail by 2016 are “bleak” and that “it is virtually going to be impossible” for the state to build it in the foreseeable future. Wow, that’s quite a mouthful, considering that our current Governor publicly threw his then-Secretary of Transportation under the bus for even suggesting that the South Coast rail line wouldn’t be paid for by revenues created by new jobs.