No more cuts expected in state health plan

Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2003 | 9:02 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The state health insurance plan, which covers an estimated 55,000 state workers, their dependents and retirees, isn't going to make any more "drastic cuts" in benefits for 18 months, its administrator said Monday.

P. Forrest "Woody" Thorne, executive officer of the state Public Employees Benefits Program, told a legislative committee he wants to see if the reductions made in July will stabilize the system that has faced a rocky time over the past five years.

Thorne said the changes approved by the board of directors of the plan have reduced the overall cost of the system.

The system's health care costs have more than doubled since 1999, when about $80 million was paid in claims to slightly more than $160 million in 2003.

"The big thing was the utilization and we got hit with a series of large claims," he told the Legislative Committee on Public Benefits. "Those have slowed down some."

The cost of the unusually large claims totaled more than $100,000 in 2000 to 2002. They included heart or liver transplants, chronic conditions or premature births, Thorne said. Premature babies "can run up into hundreds of thousands of dollars," he said.

The reduction in benefits started in July, but Thorne cautioned, "Three months does not make a trend."

In the first three months of this fiscal year, Thorne told the committee, 55 percent of the costs were attributable to 0.9 percent of the participants.

The board of directors, to keep the plan solvent, raised the deductible from $250 in 2003 to $500 this fiscal year; an employee now pays $20 for an office visit to a doctor, compared with $15 last fiscal year, and there is a $50 deductible for prescriptions compared with no deductible in 2003.

The Legislature had to pump $23 million into the plan in 1999 to keep it afloat and another $18 million in 2002 to keep it in the black.

The fund had a reserve last year of $5.4 million. Actuaries recommend it be at $20.4 million. But Thorne said it is starting to improve.

The committee, headed by Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, was created by the 2003 Legislature to look at ways to improve the system. That could include privatizing it or getting all government workers into a single plan, which would ensure better buying power and lower rates because of the larger numbers.

Giunchigliani said the committee is looking for ways to "get the best coverage. And that's not happening now."

She said Clark County has a better health insurance plan for its employees at a lower cost.