Subject: comments to state legislators This is a letter from Mr. Noble to our State Legislators: I appreciate your willingness to offer more financial assistance; however, it is the system that is broken. You will never be able to provide enough funding under a system that has no plan to help control rates. The days of offering Cadillac insurance plans are over, they are just too expensive. Also, I believe large groups as ours should be able to afford to purchase a separate policy for catastrophic coverage. If the legislature has already put $8,000,000 into additional funding to cover losses, this is evidence that something has to be done differently. The present method encourages over utilization, it does not educate members on how to properly use Health Savings Accounts, nor does it hold members accountable for doing so. If in fact we are two separate groups, and the much higher rate increases for the school employee plan is justifiable, then what is going to happen when you have catastrophic claims on the state employee side. Please scrap this system, change the law where there will be competition for the business, and open the books to convince people that both the plans are being fairly managed. We need a lot of transparency right now and evidence that everything is as they are telling you and others. The state is not a business that can just increase the cost of the product it sells to pay for rising insurance costs. In fact, businesses are doing just what I mentioned above. They are educating their employees and teaching them how to manage their own health insurance. They have realized that low deductibles and copays are breaking the bank and are moving toward health savings accounts. We need incentives to direct people toward health savings accounts. Sadly, the very great majority of school employees have never been educated on how to use them and the state employees have no need to be concerned about it (as a taxpayer I object to this because it costs all of us more). We also need a wellness plan for the group that also offers incentives to those who participate to help control rates. What we are being told is that the school employee group is much sicker than the state employee group. Forget the fact that the state employees get more help with the premium, look at the difference in the cost of the premium. Someone is going to have to prove to me that the money received from employees is separated and that the renewal increases are truly legitimate. Someone also needs to prove that there is a fair bidding process of some kind for the business or is one insurance company making a huge profit at the expense of many people who are living from month to month on their paycheck. Finally, why does the legislature fund positions that do not exist. Suppose we lose 100 students this year and never regain them. Are we still going to receive funding for those students forever? This issue is very serious and we need some answers, but one thing for sure, more funding will only be a temporary fix. We must change our approach. Thanks for listening. Jerry Noble
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 05:13:38 +0000
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