|
Home
Legislative
Action
News
Info Center
Member Pages
K-12
Public Employees
Higher Ed
Retired
Our Point
of View
Resources
Jobs
Join Us
Links
|
|
|
Montana Health Care 2000
By MEA-MFT Research Director Tom Bilodeau
After a brief respite during the HMO boom and comprehensive health care reform debate of the mid- 1990s, health care costs once again are growing by twice the rate of overall inflation. Worse yet, health insurance premiums are growing by three to four times the rate of annual inflation. Renewed insurance cost pressure has been noted since late 1998.
Large self-funded groups in Montana (the State of Montana, the university system, and school districts like Missoula and Helena) are scrambling to balance current and future group health care costs and available health fund assets. Notable plan benefit devaluations, premium increases, and premium cost shifts (to employees) have been discussed.
Among Montana school indemnity plans, many groups have seen Fiscal Year 2001 premium quotes rise by an average of 14 percent €” with some groups offered premium hikes of 30 percent or more!
The Montana Unified School Trust, sponsored by MEA-MFT, Montana School Boards Association, and School Administrators of Montana, has been able to hold the line at 14 percent for most individual group plans, and MUST€™s statewide pool members have benefited from the MUST pool€™s 8 percent premium cap.
Montana€™s recent insurance cost escalation tracks national trends €“ particularly when the cost inefficiencies of small groups (virtually all of Montana) are taken into account.
MEA-MFT, MUST, the state, university system, and local governments are trying to balance health and insurance cost escalation against available government revenues and the pressing need for wage gains among all Montana public employees. The interim legislative State Administration Committee has discussed the potential cost efficiencies of a statewide K-12 health insurance pool, or merging K-12 employees into the state€™s health pool plan.
More limited ideas such as expanding the federal/state CHIP (Children€™s Health Insurance Program) to embrace low-income parents and other uninsured Montana citizens are also under discussion. The outcome of these discussions will be decided by the 2001 (or 2003) legislature.
|
|
|
