Assembly OKs emergency insurance bill

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Thursday, Feb. 18, 1999 | 11:54 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- By early next week, Gov. Kenny Guinn should be in full charge of the financially troubled state employees group health insurance plan, which has fallen more than $15 million into the red.

The Assembly, without a dissenting vote Wednesday, approved a bill that turns control of the system over to Guinn from the state Committee on Benefits, which has overseen the system.

The bill reached the Senate later Wednesday where Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, said his Finance Committee would hold a special hearing Friday on Assembly Bill 176, which pumps an emergency $10 million into the plan to pay bills until the end of May for claims from 47,000 participants, most of whom are state workers and their dependents.

Assemblywoman Jan Evans, D-Sparks, said the budget committees of the Legislature have endured "two years of frustration" in trying to deal with the plan. When the 1997 Legislature adjourned, there was a $26 million surplus and now there's an estimated $15 million deficit.