Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Who knew that Daniels Run Park in the City of Fairfax was so hilly! This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of running in the first annual Fit Families Run Festival 5K as part of the City’s Trails Day. It was a beautiful morning and a great cause, with the proceeds going to promote family fitness. However, I’ll admit that today I didn’t mind taking some time out to sit down and do a little writing.

Just like summer reading assignments back in high school, members of the General Assembly are often assigned to special subcommittees to flesh out issues between Sessions. Last week, I received a letter in the mail notifying me that I had been appointed by the Speaker of the House to the “Joint Subcommittee to Study the Feasibility of a State-wide Health Insurance Experience Pool for Educators and Local Government Employees.”

While the title is a bit of a mouth-full, the issue is very important for our educators and local government employees and is part of the larger problem of health care affordability and accessibility. As most of us are acutely aware, health care costs have risen much faster than inflation or salaries. In fact, the average health insurance cost for an education employee has increased by approximately 50 percent over the past five years.

The problem is particularly acute for smaller school systems and local governments where health insurance rates can be extremely volatile because the employee pool is small. In these cases, one or two expensive health-related incidents can send premiums skyrocketing. The purpose of this study (Senate Joint Resolution 372) is to examine the feasibility of creating a mechanism for these smaller systems to pool together and therefore spread the risk. While this won’t directly affect the City of Fairfax or Fairfax County because we have relatively large employee pools, it will indirectly help by making insurance more affordable. The more affordable the health insurance, the less likely someone is to go uninsured and simply risk it. And when someone who is not covered has to use emergency care as their primary care system – it costs all of us.

So, I am looking forward to my special assignment. I also want to invite you to help! From my time going door-to-door and just meeting people at different events, I am constantly amazed at the depth of talent right here in the 37th District. I look forward to your thoughts and suggestions on this and other topics. Click here for more information.

Thanks for helping to make this such a wonderful community and please don’t hesitate to contact me if I can be of service to you.

Sincerely,


David Bulova

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