Kaiser to
boost premiums
2 percent

The increase, effective
Jan. 1, follows a similar
rate move for 1998

By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

Kaiser Permanente Hawaii will raise its premium rates an average of 2 percent starting Jan. 1, following a 2 percent increase at the start of this year.

The health plan, which has 209,000 members, planned to tell a meeting of business executives and labor union representatives today that careful management has kept the rates from going higher.

"Our goal has been to keep our rates stable and predictable and we have over the past three years, with no rate increase in 1996 and 1997 and a 2 percent increase in 1998," said Dee Jay Mailer, Kaiser senior vice president and executive director.

Kaiser in Hawaii has held its administrative costs down to the point where 97 cents of every dollar it receives goes to patient care and services, Mailer said in a press release.

Because state law require employers to pay a large part of their workers' health care premiums, most people get their health insurance at work and it is the employers who pay the premiums, with unions bargaining for how much of that their members will pay.

"The 2 percent increase is an average," Mailer said. "Some employers will see rate increases while others will see decreases. How consumers will be affected will depend on each employer's contributions policies."

About 77 percent of Kaiser Permanente members subscribe to its Plan B, which has a range of benefits but does not cover drugs, vision or dental care. Employers can buy separate plans for those.

Mailer said that the monthly premium for members in Plan B will rise to $136 for an individual, from $134 this year, and to $408 for a family of three or more, from $402.

Plan A members, who get laboratory and X-ray services for half their cost in addition to basic health care, will pay $115 a month for an individual or $345 a month for a family. That's up from $113 and $339, respectively. Kaiser said about 16 percent of its members subscribe to Plan A.

Earlier this year, health-care insurance competitor Hawaii Medical Service Association raised premiums between .5 to 2 percent on some plans for its 1998-99 fiscal year, which began July 1.

HMSA is much bigger than Kaiser, with about 600,000 members. Its plans generally require members to pay a share of the bills from doctors or clinics but allow them to choose a health-care provider.

Kaiser's fees cover care at its own clinics, its 272-bed hospital at Moanalua, and clinics it contracts with on Kauai.

Kaiser, a nonprofit health maintenance organization, was founded in 1958 by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser, who had a home in Portlock and developed the Hawaii Kai residential and commercial subdivision.

Kaiser has 9 million members in 18 states and the District of Columbia.

In Hawaii it employs 3,300, including 306 physicians. Kaiser expected about 400 representatives of business and labor to attend its rate presentation at a breakfast meeting this morning at the Hilton Hawaiian Village.