And over that time, the partnership has made giant strides toward providing coverage for fishermen and their families in a field of small, independent businesses, lowering the number of uninsured from more than 40 percent to around 13 percent.

But the dawn of MassHealth and other changes on the national health-care landscape have brought such a fluid shift in eligibility for various programs that it indeed seems no longer viable for a nonprofit industry "partnership" to provide its own plan.

And to that end, the Massachusetts Fishing Partnership, as outlined in Monday's Times story, is absolutely right in shifting its focus, steering fishermen into various existing plans that best fit their eligibility and needs while still getting the best rates available through group membership.

Read the complete editorial from The Gloucester Times