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Columbus
Dispatch...
Editorial: Band together
Health-care pooling
makes sense for Ohio’s school districts
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
This should be the year that Ohio lawmakers start the wheels turning
toward statewide health-insurance pools for school employees.
This eminently sensible idea has been batted around the Statehouse at
least since 1998, when then-gubernatorial candidate Lee Fisher proposed
it for all public employees statewide. It has been resisted fiercely by
health-insurance companies and not embraced by school employees who
want no changes to their plans, but studies and experience indicate it
could save taxpayers millions.
When Springfield Republican Chris Widener, then a state representative,
brought a bill for mandatory health-insurance pooling for school
districts in 2005, the bill died in the Senate, but as a half-measure,
legislators created the School Employees Health Care Board to study the
feasibility of a mandatory statewide pool.
The board stopped short of that politically difficult measure, but in
2008 produced a set of “best practices” standards that all
school-district health-care plans must embrace. These standards, which
include wellness and health-assessment programs, have helped districts
save money.
But the true savings will come only when the state’s 612 districts pool
their buying power and their risk.
Without a mandate, the financially strongest districts could opt out,
leaving the pool weaker.
A report done for the board in 2006 estimated that a statewide pool
could save $30 million to $190 million per year, depending on the
health-care plan’s features and how much local control is allowed.
Already, districts that have joined forces voluntarily to form smaller
pools have seen savings; an annual report by the health-care board for
2010 said those districts in pools had insurance premiums averaging
$142 per month less than those not in pools.
With state aid to school districts likely to take a hit along with
every other category of state spending, these are savings school
districts can’t afford to turn down.
Getting to a statewide pool won’t be easy or immediate;
health-insurance benefits are negotiated in collective bargaining with
employee unions. Existing contracts would have to play out, and
changing health-care benefits would be highly contentious in future
bargaining. Of course, this would be simplified if the legislature
proceeds with plans to make health-care off-limits in union
negotiations.
An October 2009 Dispatch story detailed the fact that school-district
employees in Franklin County have more-expensive health-care plans than
the U.S. average and pay less in premiums than does the average U.S.
worker. Unions consider such health-care plans a hard-won benefit and
will fight to keep them.
But perhaps this year - with an $8 billion hole in the state budget and
school districts facing reduced state aid, as well as voters weary of
local taxes - lawmakers will face the need for change and take the lead
in making it happen.
Read it at the Columbus Dispatch
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