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StumbleState insurance plan faces $100 million shortfall
74,000 enrolees face major cutbacks in benefits
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.
CARSON CITY — There’s a gaping $100 million hole in the health insurance plan that covers state workers, retirees and their dependents. And the 74,000 enrollees are facing major cutbacks in benefits.
“This is grim news,” said James Richardson, who headed the insurance plan seven years ago.
Kateri Cavin, operations officer of the Public Employees Health Program, said budget officials project the amount the state will contribute the next two fiscal years will be flat.
Cavin said medical inflation is expected to rise 11 to 12 percent per year and that puts the shortfall at $90 million to $100 million for the biennium.
The state is going to be an estimated $3 billion short in its coming two-year budget, and both candidates for governor say they don’t approve of new taxes to cover the pending deficit.
The program board meets Thursday to start taking a look at what can be reduced to stay within the budget.
“We’re putting it all on the table,” Cavin said.
Martin Bibb, representing the Retired Public Employees of Nevada, said he doesn’t want to see premiums increased so much or the deductible increased so high that retirees cannot afford the plan.
“This is a huge concern to retirees,” said Bibb, who noted that the Legislature in the 2009 session cut $53 million from the plan and shaved $25 million again in a special session this year.
The state subsidizes the premiums of its employees at 84.8 percent and for retirees and dependents at 57 percent. It has an annual budget of more than $500 million.
Richardson, who represents the Nevada Faculty Alliance in the university system, said, “This makes the Sage Commission look like a Sunday School picnic,” referring to a report that suggested major cutbacks in the state insurance plan.
Some of the approximately 40 suggestions to be considered include doubling the deductible for family coverage, eliminating co-payments and cutting all lab coverage at hospitals for certain procedures.
On the table are scrapping routine vision benefits except for annual eye exams and limiting dental cleanings to two per year. There is also a suggestion to eliminate coverage for spouses or domestic partners with other employer coverage.
The program board will take testimony on Thursday at its Carson City meeting that will be televised to Las Vegas. It will start making decisions Aug. 5.
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Shortfalls? It seems that Federal, State, County and City Governments always operate with deficit spending and has been doing so for decades.
Who's fooling who? Borrow, spend, borrow, spend, raise taxes. Borrow, spend, borrow, spend, raise taxes. Borrow, spend, borrow, spend......
It is sad to see this rapid downward spiral. Insolvency is inevitable at the pace we are going. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Well info is right but left out one important point. There is no income coming in or little of it.People have moved away,others fired,people have lost their homes.No taxes being paid by home owners.Fewer employees,fewer employee taxes and it goes on and on.But hang in there "info"...you'll get your question answered soon enough as the state starts to freeze everything and reduce benefits.
Public employee pay and benefits vs. the people continues...
Those selfish public workers. Imagine state cops, firefighters, corrections officers, college professors, nurses, engineers, doctors, public health workers, unemployment workers and others all wanting medical insurance for themselves and their families. How selfish.
Full-time private sector workers don't expect or even want medical coverage.
While we are cutting state workers' medical benefits think of how more more we could save at the federal level cutting military families off medical care and closing the VA hopital system. Those overpaid military personnel with their bloated benefits. They even get offered free college education and a retirement after 20 years. How extravagant. A mandatory draft will cut those military personnel costs.
I bet Nevada will really be able to recruit and retain even better state workers by offering less medical benefits than a part-time worker at Starbucks. Paying any state worker or Armed Forces member over $7.25 a hour and providing any fringe benefits like retirement or medical is wasteful and unnecessary.
(For the Tea Party types, the above is sarcasm.
I'm also amazed people don't know there are Nevada Division of Forestry firefighters working in dangerous conditions fighting wildland and adjoining structure fires.)
Where have these people been? They are just now thinking about limiting dental cleanings to two per year. That happen in the private sector 15 years ago, if you even had dental coverage.
"How selfish."
didactic -- it is when they expect other people to pay for it. It's time for public sector employees to get a dose of reality -- the body politick is tapped out.
"...and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them." -- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in a TV interview for Thames TV "This Week" on Feb. 5, 1976
cinderelladream -- excellent points. Amazing what one can do when one takes back their lives, no?
KillerB,
Of course there is going be downsizing and belt tightening. We are in a legitimate financial crisis.
But is is ludicrous attempt to hire a state probation officer, a doctor for the prison system, nurse for the state health department, correction officer, an engineer for the highway department, a firefighter for NDF, and other state workers and tell them to plan on getting a part-time job at UPS to get medical benefits for their kids or to tell a US Marine or soldier to make sure his or her spouse has a job with medical benefits because the Department of Defense doesn't support the family of servicemembers because that would be "socialist."
With Nevada in the the five states with lowest tax load in the US, it sounds like freeloading Tea Partiers wanting their public services without paying for any.
Public or private, you get what you pay for. That high quality doctor, engineer, nurse, architect, grant writer, cop, firefighter, professor, programmer, investigator, lab tech, accountant, bookkeeping won't come or stay working as a state worker for the Chamber of Commerce's recommended $7.25 minimum wage with no medical benefits even in this economy.
I think our military and their families deserve at least the support they had in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the first Gulf War.
"Socialism" is the current excuse for freeloaders in society to get "their own" without contributing to society. The freeloaders drive on the public roads, kids and grandkids attend public schools and college, they expect the prison staffed, want to be sure bridges are safe, want a fire station with emergency medical on the corner, want public health services, they want cops and probation officers, Social Security, VA hospitals, Medicare, but whine about how they shouldn't have to pay for the services they demand and use.
I have to wonder when I hear how we "need" a $500,000 salary for state employee basketball coach at UNLV because "you get what you pay for" even in an athletic program that loses taxpayer's money, but paying medical benefits to an engineering professor, who could be making a better salary in the private sector but wanted to give back to society by teaching the next generation of engineers at UNLV, would be "Socialism."
The freeloading Tea Party is using "Socialism" as their excuse to try sponge off the rest of society.