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VP Edmonds Named To Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission

Gov. Baker and Edmonds

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has named Vice President for Programming and Community Outreach Jane C. Edmonds to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Group Insurance Commission.

“We are fortunate to welcome a leader of Jane Edmonds’ caliber to the Group Insurance Commission,” said Dr. Roberta Herman, Executive Director. “Jane’s diverse experience in state government over thirteen years will allow her to provide an important voice for a core part of our membership – our retiree population. We look forward to partnering with her to address issues of importance across the benefit landscape for this group and all Commonwealth employees more broadly.”

About GIC

The Group Insurance Commission (GIC) was established by the Legislature in 1955 to provide and administer health insurance and other benefits to the Commonwealth’s employees and retirees, and their dependents and survivors. The GIC also covers housing and redevelopment authorities’ personnel, participating municipalities, and retired municipal employees and teachers in certain governmental units.

Health coverage options include an Indemnity plan, Point of Service (POS) plans, Preferred Provider-type Organizations (PPOs), an Exclusive Provider Organization (EPO), and several HMO plans. As part of its UniCare state indemnity and active employee Tufts Health plans, it manages mental health/substance abuse benefits and also manages pharmacy benefits for the indemnity plans. For active state employees only, the GIC offers a long term disability (LTD) program, two pre-tax employee programs – Health Care Spending Account (HCSA) and Dependent Care Assistance Program (DCAP), and for managers, legislators, legislative staff and certain Executive Office staff, a dental/vision plan. The GIC offers a discount vision plan for Commonwealth retirees and a dental plan for state and certain municipal retirees

The Group Insurance Commission is a quasi-independent state agency governed by a seventeen-member Commission appointed by the Governor. Commission members encompass a range of interests and expertise including labor and retirees, the public interest, the administration, and health economics.

The GIC’s FY2017 appropriation is $2.1 billion. There are currently over 250,000 enrollees and over 436,000 people covered by the GIC.

Jane C. Edmonds

Early in her career, Edmonds was appointed by Governor Michael S. Dukakis as Chair of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (“MCAD”), the civil rights law enforcement agency for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

She later founded and ran her own consulting firm, Jane C. Edmonds & Associates, Inc., a workforce development and diversity leadership firm serving clients in the private, public and non-profit sectors for more than twenty years, among them: GE Capital Corporation, Fidelity, U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, American Red Cross, United Technologies, Bureau of the Census, and Camp Dresser & McKee.

In 2003, Edmonds served as a member of Governor Mitt Romney’s cabinet and as head of the Department of Workforce Development responsible for oversight of three line operating divisions and several centrally-managed functions, and for the flow of over two billion dollars in federal, state and tax revenues within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Most recently, Edmonds served as Senior Fellow at Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies where she taught graduate-level domestic and international leadership courses in the Master of Science in Leadership Program.