It has been well documented that the high cost of living, and the high cost of doing business in the Commonwealth is hurting our economy and competitiveness.  National census numbers have been clear that we are annually losing population to other lower cost states, and the additional dark storefronts of small stores and restaurants have continued six years past COVID. 

 

It is imperative that our elected officials now look in the mirror and lower the costs of certain counterproductive state public policies which are hurting the disposable incomes of our working families, and therefore lowering sales on Main Streets.  And those very same small businesses seeing lower customer sales are also injured in their costs of operations by the very same mandated costs affecting our consumers.  State health insurance mandates, and utility bill mandates are lowering disposable incomes for our consumers, lowering the take home pay for our workforces, and raising the costs of keeping our doors open.  State health insurance premiums in Massachusetts include state mandates for small businesses and their employees which add on as much as 24% to the totals; while utility bills similarly have state mandates adding as much as 30% to the total bills. 

 

These mandates are not optional to the bill payer, rather the state makes the consumer and the small employer pay those mandates whether or not they want the required mandates, will ever use the mandates, or can afford the mandates.  And these costly mandates either do not exist, or are not nearly as costly in other states. 

 

RAM is making these costly, counterproductive mandates a top public policy objective for 2026.  The health insurance and utility consumers should be entitled to have the right to choose whether they want to pay for a certain service added on to their bills.  To make those points, we are launching an advertising campaign to send that message to our public policy leaders and to opinion leaders across the state.  Take a moment to review the 30 and 15 second ads above.

 

Finally, we will be following up this advertising campaign with a membership  grassroots campaign in the coming weeks.  RAM will be asking our members to contact their state elected officials to urge them to make the cost of living and the cost of doing business their top priorities for 2026.  Watch for a Call to Action on this member grassroots campaign, which will allow you to easily contact your legislators by email right through our website.    Thank you for your participation in this vital public policy campaign.