Legislation to bail out the State Health Plan is expected to be back before House members Thursday, and several proposed amendments will be taken up that could further delay its passage.
House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman said one amendment would switch the plan from a fiscal year — July 1 to June 30 — to a calendar year so that members can better take advantage of health savings accounts and other cost-saving initiatives, Dan Kane reports.
Another would allow drugs that help the mentally ill to be treated the same as most drugs, instead of being labeled specialty drugs that would cost members more.
A third amendment would restore a benefit that allows members to pay the same co-payment to see a chiropractor as the family doctor. This is the same benefit that former House Speaker Jim Black inserted into the state budget four years ago and helped land him in prison when three chiropractors admitted to giving him cash payments while pushing their legislative agenda. It was later rescinded.
Holliman didn't criticize the proposals, but he said they all come with a cost.
"We're asking the sponsors where the money will come from," Holliman said.
More after the jump.
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Meanwhile, members of a state employee group are asking House lawmakers to cut out the benefit reductions that would increase co-payments and deductibles and in later years force smokers and overweight members into the most expensive coverage.
"In a year when employees are already facing possible layoffs, furloughs and a freeze in longevity pay reducing health care benefits at over $600 per member is just bad policy," said Chuck Stone, a representative with the State Employees Association of North Carolina.
Holliman, a Lexington Democrat, said putting off benefit reductions for a year would cost the plan $145 million. "With our deficit we don't have somewhere to come up with that," he said.
Holliman and Senate Majority Leader Tony Rand, a Fayetteville Democrat, have urged lawmakers to pass the bail out bill quickly to make money available to the plan before it runs out of money in the next two weeks, and to give the plan time to notify its 667,000 members of benefit reductions and other changes that would start July 1.
Holliman said if the bill gets out of the House Insurance Committee tomorrow it could still get through the chamber next week, though if it is changed it would then need Senate approval as well. The current version would cost the state's general fund roughly $660 million.
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Re: Health plan fix back tomorrow?
Oh I'll worry about that tomorrow...