Health Plan narrowly passes key vote

The State Health Plan bill squeaked through the House appropriations committee on Wednesday.

The narrow margin 44 to 40 suggested to House Majority Leader Hugh Holliman that he may have some more work to do before he puts the bill up to a vote on the House floor next week.

"I think there's a lot of concern about state employees," said Holliman, a Lexington Democrat. "We're working to make this bill as good as we can."

The plan is facing a shortfall this year of $250 million and in addition to setting premiums and establishing coverage for state employees and their dependents, the bill would keep the plan solvent this year.

For next year, the bill would increase premiums for spouses and children of state employees by 10 percent each year. That increase grew after lawmakers added some $54 million in costs over two years to move the plan to a calendar year and voted to cover chiropractic services and physical, occupation and speech therapy at the same level as primary care.

More after the jump.

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The structure of the Health Plan, which offers employees free premiums but requires relatively high premiums for their dependents has chased younger and healthier people out of the plan.

Rep. Jeff Barnhart, a Concord Republican, voted against the bill in part because it doesn't include any direct efforts to fix the structural problem.

"We're not fixing the plan in this bill. We're making the problem worse," he said.

Holliman said the intention is to keep the plan solvent and then study how to restructure it for the future.

Ardis Watkins, a lobbyist for the State Employees Association of North Carolina, said the bill doesn't address serious problems with the heath plan, including the need for more scrutiny on how the plan is run.

"It was shameful," Watkins said of the committee vote. "They turned their back on wanting to take any responsibility by passing that."

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Re: Health Plan narrowly passes key vote

Submitted by johnmayer76 on April 18, 2009 - 1:00am.

If you are uninsured and does not have insurance, you should check out the website http://UninsuredAmerica.blogspot.com - John Mayer, California

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Re: Health Plan narrowly passes key vote

Submitted by mcmillf on April 10, 2009 - 8:03am.

Totally absurd. You must rally together to investigate and re-organize the planning and administrative handling of state health insurance. This plan is unacceptable, overpriced and minimizes healthcare for selective groups. I am retired and cannot afford continued increases each year, while insurance coverage decreases. If you keep on, no one will want to work for the State. Freezing longevity, adding monthly premiums, and increasing premiums, co-pays and deductibles add to the budget of families. Many of these families are trying to put food on the table, pay power bills, cloth kids and buy medicines. We cannot afford to pay these outrageous prices. You are pricing your health plans out of business, and also out of state employment. Many families don't have a 2nd partner working for the state, and many of those spouses are unemployed. And the government wants us to spend money to boost the economy. RIGHT? No longer does the state offer incentives to recruit good hardworking employees. You get what you pay for too. Those incentives, affordable incentives, are what draws the better employees. Could be you're killing it. Please reconsider other ways to re-write this before it is too late for the current employees who have given dedicated years of service and for the younger employees who may be considering other lines of employment because they see no future in the STATE.

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Re: Health Plan narrowly passes key vote

Submitted by beachbum474 on April 8, 2009 - 8:04pm.

So what will you do when you FIRE 700 TAX PAYERS from the State Government and the younger state employees who survive the onslaught get priced out of the health care plan and turn to private insurance? Are you counting on losing all that revenue going into the SHP in future years? How will that lost revenue be made up? Will you just raise the premiums and co pays again? THINK THINK THINK! Plan you know at least 3 or 4 moves ahead instead of getting stuck at the first move. I'm a state employee (if my bias has not given me away by now) and I am a young one with a family. I can not afford the SHP any longer and the state WILL be losing my premiums and co pays. I pay around ~$500 per month x 12 = ~$6000 per year lost revenue to the SHP from just 1 employee. On top of that because I am paid so little (college degree professional paid poverty wages), we qualify for state government programs which we will start taking advantage of. Now add that into your cost for your seemingly inability to plan.

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