Panelist: Cut plans for some in schools

Cover workers for state, he says

The chairman of a legislative task force on health insurance plans for state and public school employees said Tuesday that he still supports dropping part-time public school employees, but not part-time state employees, from the plans.

Sen. Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, said that dropping part-time state workers from coverage would affect only about 280 employees and would save little if any money.

"The potential for savings is not really significant, and in fact there's a potential for loss," Hendren said during a joint meeting Tuesday of the State and Public School Life and Health Insurance Task Force and the House and Senate Education committees.

The task force was created during a special session of the Legislature last year to study ways to improve the finances of the plans, which cover about 47,000 teachers and other school employees and about 28,000 state employees.

Hendren said he still supports removing part-time public school employees from the plans, which he said would affect about 4,000 employees and save the state about $10 million in 2015.

School districts, which are required to contribute at least $150 per month for each enrolled employee, would save an estimated $7 million in 2015 by not having to contribute toward coverage for part-time employees.

Hendren said he had hoped that money could be redirected to the health plans, but he learned that doing so would risk violating requirements for school funding under the Arkansas Constitution.

He said he hopes school districts will use the money to increase the part-time employees' pay.

"They're going to find it's more competitive in the world to hire a [commercial driver's license] driver when you don't give him insurance, and they're going to have to pay higher wages," Hendren said after the meeting.

Brenda Robinson, president of the Arkansas Education Association, the state's largest teacher's union, said after the hearing that the organization thinks dropping the part-time employees "is not the best idea to fix the system, because it creates unintended consequences for working families."

The proposal is "a distraction from the real solution, which is to provide an adequate funding stream that will fix the system and help it to become solvent," she said.

In addition to dropping part-time employees from the plans, the task force last month recommended excluding from coverage employees' spouses who have access to insurance from their own employers and giving the Department of Finance and Administration's Employee Benefits Division more flexibility to limit the plans' coverage of weight-loss surgeries.

Hendren said he hopes to finish revisions of draft legislation within the next few days and to ask Gov. Mike Beebe to hold a special session to adopt the changes later this month or early next month.

Matt DeCample, a spokesman for Beebe, said the decision to call a special session will "depend on if we get a bill that everyone likes and what the vote count looks like in both houses."

"The governor does not like calling special sessions unless we know ahead of time that everything's going to go through in three days," DeCample said.

The governor met with Hendren and the task force's vice chairman, Rep. Harold Copenhaver, D-Jonesboro, on Tuesday, DeCample said. The governor doesn't want to comment on any specific proposals until the revisions to the draft legislation are complete, he added.

Proponents of dropping part-time public school employees from coverage say most of the employees would qualify for subsidized coverage that became available Jan. 1 under the federal health-care overhaul law.

Some employees already qualify for Medicaid under the expansion of that program, which was approved by the Legislature last year.

Those who do not qualify for Medicaid but have incomes below 400 percent of the poverty level may qualify for tax-credit subsidies to help pay their premiums for plans offered on the state's health-insurance exchange.

But the tax-credit subsidies are not available to people who have access to employer-sponsored coverage that is considered "affordable," meaning it would cost less than 9.5 percent of the employee's income.

Two of the task force's 12 members, Sens. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow, and Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, voted last month against the recommendation to drop the part-time employees, citing, among other concerns, uncertainty about whether the options for subsidized coverage would still be available next year.

Other legislators also expressed reservations Tuesday.

"I am so afraid [that] if we do not continue to insure these great and fine people, we are going to get a quality of worker that is less than what we expect in our schools," said Rep. Sue Scott, R-Rogers.

Mike Mertens, assistant director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators, said the change has prompted worries in some school districts, especially those in rural areas, about whether they will be able to recruit bus drivers and other part-time employees.

The Arkansas School Boards Association opposes dropping part-time employees because of the possibility that some of them could be left without options for affordable coverage, said Ron Harder, the organization's policy service and advocacy director.

That could happen, he said, if an employee's spouse had access to coverage from another employer. Under the federal health-care law, if anyone in a household is eligible for employer-sponsored coverage that is deemed affordable for the employee, the entire family is ineligible for tax-credit subsidies, even if the family coverage offered is not affordable.

Without offering health insurance, keeping and retaining part-time employees "could be a significant problem" for schools, Harder said.

In addition to Hendren, Rapert, Chesterfield and Copenhaver, members of the task force include: Sens. Cecile Bledsoe, R-Rogers; Eddie Cheatham, D-Crossett; and David Sanders, R-Little Rock; and Reps. Bill Gossage, R-Ozark; Allen Kerr, R-Little Rock; George McGill, D-Fort Smith; James McLean, D-Batesville; and Tommy Wren, D-Melbourne.

Metro on 06/11/2014

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