February 5, 2009

State Health Plan Reform? Start with Legislators

Posted at 1:46 PM by Adam Searing

There’s been lots of talk this week about the shortfall in the state health plan. State employees (who didn’t get us into this mess) might be required to pay 30% premium increases and have even higher cost sharing and fewer benefits. General Assembly members received a briefing for over an hour yesterday about the plan. There was plenty of discussion about which groups were costing the state plan the most money and so on. Not discussed at the briefing was the following option:

Eliminate the special state health plan access members of the General Assembly enjoy. North Carolina’s General Assembly is a part-time legislature. Being a legislator is part-time work. However, serving legislators get the same health plan coverage as full-time state employees! There’s even a special coverage group in the state health plan just for legislators who aren’t at retirement age when they leave the General Assembly. This special coverage plan enables former General Assembly members, at any age, to buy into the state health plan by paying the full premium. Depending on age and health condition, this can be much cheaper than what is available to the rest of us in the individual health insurance market.

Read the NC Justice Center’s full report from last year on the health plans available to NC’s elected officials. When waving the flag of “necessary” benefit cuts and higher costs for our state employees, General Assembly members shouldn’t avoid the opportunity to lead by example.

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3 Comments

3 Comments Add yours »

HealthCare-NOW 5 Feb 2009 7:13 pm

I really doubt that the NC Legislature has the expertise to solve the medical cost/quality emergency here at the state level.

if House Resolution 676 passes Congress then we wont need a ‘State Health Plan’, we will have Medicare 4 All Everyone In, Nobody Out!

Marsha V. Hammond, PhD 6 Feb 2009 2:35 am

So, regardless of this fine ‘mental health parity law’ which passed in 2008, with main sponsor Martha Alexander, there’s no mental health parity for:

BCBSNC Federal employee plans
BCBSNC Advanta Plans
BCBCNS ‘State Plan’

SO DOES BCBSNC HAVE TO ADHERE TO ANYTHING ASSOCIATED W/ MENTAL HEALTH PARITY AS GUIDED BY THE NC STATE LEGISLATURE?

Marsha V. Hammond, PhD
http://madamedefarge2scutinizingbcbsnc.blogspot.com/
http://madame-defarge.blogspot.com/

Lois Bernard, LCSW 26 Jul 2009 7:31 am

I am a mental health provider who is also covered by the State BC/BS plan. My copay for a “specialist’ has increased from $40 to $60 this year. This might not seem like a lot but since the Primary Care Physician copay is $25 this is NOT parity and will prevent many of my patients from continuing care with any specialists even those who are not mental health such as allergists. It appears this parity law will not affect North Carolina BC/BS participants in any way except to increase copays. Is this not so or is the plan merely increasing the copays until Nov 1 2009 when they will have to comply with Fed. Law?

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