Health insurance fiasco is a travesty

To The Sentinel:

Our school district health care costs have increased annually at an alarming rate and every budget cycle we are told by School Administrative Unit 29 administrators, various union reps and school board members that nothing can be done to control these skyrocketing costs.

This is simply not true. The fact is that they have chosen to do nothing to mitigate these huge cost increases.

Approximately three years ago, the Keene school board instructed the administrative unit to form a health insurance study committee to find a way to control the double-digit annual increases projected into the future.

The unit selected the make-up of the committee from board members of district schools, each of the various union representatives, unit administrators and two community representatives.

With fairly significant experience in negotiating and selecting health insurance plans in the private sector, I volunteered to serve the committee as Keene's community representative.

Eli Rivera, who was then the board chairman, and Keene Education Association union representative Brenda Dunn, were appointed as committee chairs.

To highlight the huge disparity between the school district's health insurance plan design and the rest of the community, I prepared a matrix of plan designs and employee contribution rates for about a dozen local businesses in the private sector, both large and small, to be used as reference information. After presenting this data at the second monthly meeting, I was firmly told that any discussions regarding alternate plan designs or increased employee contribution rates were off the table and not open for discussion.

Obviously, plan design drives the premium rate more than any other factor and modern plan designs (modified yearly by most business entities) do not even come close to the antiquated and brutally expensive legacy plan designs protected by our school district.

For reference, the district's plan includes a $1 co-pay for a three month supply of any prescription. Yes, that's right - a $1 co-pay.

The majority of committee members knew nothing about health insurance plan designs and cost drivers, so the first year was primarily spent educating the committee.

Graciously, Marsha Dixon of IPG Employee Benefits agreed to donate hundreds of hours of her time and energy to research various options that might be available to the district.

Through her contacts and years of experience in the employee benefit field, Marsha was able to convince the president of Cigna Healthcare of New Hampshire to offer a specially customized direct replacement plan to match the districts current legacy plan with Health Trust.

After receiving premium rate quotes for the Cigna replacement plan, we found the unit could save anywhere from $250,000 to $400,000 in annual premium costs. The added beauty of the Cigna plan included a participating contract that would also return unused premiums to the district depending upon annual use of services.

Over the previous three years of historical usage for the unit, the Cigna plan would have additionally returned more than $1 million per year to the district. Led by Keene Education Association union representative Brenda Dunn, a majority of the committee voted to not recommend the replacement plan to the board citing the following reasons:

• It would be too stressful on employees to change insurance carriers
• There was no mechanism to return the potential millions of dollars in annual savings to employees, even though employees didn't contribute toward payment of those premiums
• There could be some covered retirees now living in other states that might have to change their primary care physician to a doctor in the Cigna nationwide network.

Despite the lack of recommendation by the committee to proceed, Marsha and I decided to present the opportunity to the Unit 29 board anyway. The board chose once again to do nothing.

When you go to the polls on March 13, you need to know that employee representatives for three of the unions with contracts now up for renewal chose not to recommend a replacement health insurance plan that could have easily saved the community millions in annual benefit costs.

This is district business as usual and a travesty by any standard.