Berkshire Health Group Sets 8.75% Premium Rise for FY27

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
05:26AM / Thursday, January 29, 2026Print Story | Email Story

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The towns and school districts in Berkshire Health Group will see an 8.75 percent increase in health insurance premiums in the fiscal year that begins on July 1.

Ten of the 12 voting members on the BHG board decided Wednesday morning at McCann Technical School on a vote of 8-2 to set the health plan rates for municipal employees in the member towns and districts.

The hike is a little more than half of the 16 percent increase the joint purchase group enacted for the current fiscal year.

Wednesday's decision will come as welcome news to town managers and administrators and school superintendents who may have been fearing a repeat of FY26, but the 8.75 percent hike still likely will constrain the spending decisions that officials will be making over the next few months as they prepare to send budgets to town meetings across the county this spring.

The main decision point for the BHG board on Wednesday morning: how to cover Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists or GLP-1 medications, commonly marketed under trade names like Ozempic, Wegovy and Rybelsus.

The board decided that the weight-loss drugs no longer will be covered for all employees covered under BHG plans and will be covered only for those people who have been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Joseph Anderson of Gallagher Benefit Services told the Berkshire Health Group board members that demand for the GLP-1 medications has exploded in their member units in recent years.

In 2023, the group saw 43 claimants and 219 prescriptions for GLP-1s. In 2025, those numbers soared to 244 claimants and 1,885 prescriptions.

Anderson gave the BHG board several possible scenarios to choose from for the FY27 rate. The most expensive, including the current availability of GLP-1 medications, would have meant another 16 percent increase in the cost to group members.

The insurance consultant said Berkshire Health Group is not alone in facing the fiscal impact of the popular weight-loss products.

"[The Massachusetts Interlocal Insurance Association] is not funding [GLP-1s]," Anderson said. "For a place like the [commonwealth's] Group Insurance Commission, for the state taxpayers, it's about a $300 million a year spend. I have a [purchasing] group that, for this year, after rebates, it's projected to be a $24 million spend."

After clarifying that the people diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes still would be covered for the drugs, the board moved quickly toward one of the scenarios that reduced the availability of GLP-1s.

"I'm not an expert in any of this," Mount Greylock Superintendent Joseph Bergeron said. "I don't feel great making decisions about what people can and can't access. But I look at the numbers, and they're terrifying."

Of the three non-GLP-1 scenarios prepared by Gallagher Benefit Services, the differences involved how much the group would lean on its reserves in FY27 depending on where it set the premium.

An 8.94 percent increase in the premium would have resulted in about a $950 loss in reserves. The 8.75 percent increase ultimately chosen translated to a $79,753 projected use of reserves. A 9 percent increase would have resulted in a $23,935 addition to the reserves.

"I'm looking at Scenario 2 — approximately $80,000 from the trust, which I think is manageable," McCann Tech Superintendent James Brosnan said before moving to approve the 8.75 percent increase. "It's something I think is fair to everybody."

Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts, which administers health insurance plans for Berkshire Health Group, is rolling out new supports, including nutritional counselling, for enrollees who will be losing coverage of GLP-1 drugs, the board was told on Wednesday.

Berkshire Health Group, founded in 1990, covers municipal employees in the towns of Adams, Lanesborough, Lenox, Great Barrington, Richmond and Williamstown and the Berkshire Hills, Central Berkshire, Hoosac Valley, Mount Greylock, Northern Berkshire Vocational (McCann Tech) and Southern Berkshire Regional school districts along with a couple of dozen smaller governmental units that do not have seats on the board.

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North Adams Becomes a Purple Heart Community

By Jack GuerinoiBerkshires Staff
05:16AM / Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Veterans Service Officer Kurtis Durocher, a Purple Heart recipient, tells his own story of how he was wounded in Iraq.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — City leaders last week held a ceremony marking the city as a Purple Heart Community to honor local military service members wounded or killed in combat.

"This designation is much more than a sign that will stand at the entrances to our city," said Kurtis Durocher, Northern Berkshire veterans service officer at City Hall on Friday. "It is a lasting commitment and a promise to this community. We'll never forget the sacrifices made by those who are wounded or killed while serving our nation. It is a public declaration of the courage and sacrifices of combat wounded. Veterans will always have a place of honor here in North Adams."

As a Purple Heart Community, North Adams will place signs throughout the city acknowledging the designation. The city will also hold a ceremony every Aug. 7 on National Purple Heart Day.

During the inaugural ceremony, Durocher said he was asked by the Military Order of the Purple Heart to find a keynote speaker for the event, preferably a Purple Heart recipient. But he was unable to find someone willing to speak. With the date approaching, he decided to tell his own story.

"I don't like standing up and telling my own personal story ... But I realized, in my position as a VSO, I get so many ... children of veterans who will say, 'I didn't know anything about my father until after he passed because he just didn't talk about it,'" Durocher said. "... I have been that way until I've gotten into this position, and so, now, I try to tell my story as much as I can when it is brought to me."

Durocher served in the Army for 20 years and retired as a master sergeant. On Friday, he recalled a time early in his career while serving in the 82nd Airborne Division deploying to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. On Sept. 12, 2003, his squad was conducting a patrol on Route Irish in Baghdad. He was serving as a gunner on an LMTV when it was struck by a 155-millimeter artillery shell. He said the explosive had been hidden behind a guardrail and detonated using nothing more than a washing machine timer.

"In an instant, everything changed. The blast knocked me unconscious. When I regained consciousness, I instinctively was removing my helmet," he said. "Almost immediately my training took over. We had been taught repeatedly that attacks like this were often followed by a secondary attack or an ambush. I quickly put my helmet back on and began searching for my machine gun."

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