Give schools more health insurance choices

From Detnews.com



Bills would allow school districts to seek savings in their coverage



School health insurance legislation pending in the state House Education Committee could save school districts up to an estimated $150 million in the first year. The bills correctly offer the districts more options in buying costly health insurance for their employees.



They've already been adopted by the Senate and would allow school districts to either self-insure for their health care claims or form pools with other districts to self-insure. It is the self-insurance that allows for the potential savings.



School districts could continue to purchase their health insurance through other providers if they choose.



If they self-insure, they also could join what's called a Catastrophic Stop Loss program, which would be administered by a board. Similar to the Catastrophic Claims board operated by auto insurers, the board could set payments by members to provide umbrella coverage if any school district had a bad run of serious illnesses by employees.



Payments to the stop loss program would come out of self-insurance premiums paid by school districts or pools, just as auto insurance purchasers pay into the Catastrophic Claims pool. Unlike auto insurance, which is required by state law to provide unlimited lifetime benefits for auto injuries, a school health insurance pool only has to deal with the narrower coverage limits of health insurance policies.



The bills have been criticized because they don't provide for reserves or oversight by the state insurance commissioner. But amendments to the bills in the Senate now require adequate reserves and empower the insurance commissioner to order that sufficient payments be made into self-insurance pools to sustain benefits.



One additional advantage is that school districts under this legislation would be able to obtain data on their own claims histories to determine if they are getting the best price for their health insurance dollars. That's currently not possible.



While opposed by the Michigan Education Association, the largest teachers union, the bills are supported by AFT Michigan, the smaller of the state's two teacher unions, state school board and school administrator associations, and the Wayne and Oakland County intermediate school boards, among others.



They have the reasonable goal of allowing school districts to save money on health insurance, a rapidly escalating expense that is destroying school budgets. They ought to pass.