Editorials

[ OUR OPINION ]

HSTA sets itself before
all others, including taxpayers

THE ISSUE Taxpayers and teachers may have paid too much for union-run insurance plan.

THE state budget director's estimate that the teachers union health fund received $2.1 million in overpayments bolsters arguments that the public employee health insurance reform law the Legislature passed last year is essential to curbing costs. While the union certainly has the right to continue its attempts to overturn the law, it also should consider the total effect its effort may have on the state's meager resources.

Budget director Neal Miyahira contends that the $2.1 million in excess charges for the current fiscal year -- and another $13 million from fiscal years 1995 through 2001 -- shows that taxpayers and union members themselves may be paying too much for the union-run health plan. The Hawaii State Teachers Association, however, argues that Miyahira's estimates are unreliable even though he based the figures on the union's filings.

HSTA vows to renew next year the campaign it has waged through this legislative session to remove the union from the reform law, which is to take effect July 2003. The law places health plans operated by the various public worker unions under one state-run system. The reform measure was passed after the legislative auditor projected that the separate plans would cost taxpayers more than $1 billion a year by 2013, a sum that would severely burden the state and taxpayers.

Lawmakers approved the law after noting that the unions were not reimbursing the state any excess in premiums refunded by the insurer, when the state had paid 60 percent of the premiums.

HSTA wants to continue to run its own health plan, maintaining that it can do so more efficiently than the state. How it has determined this is unclear since the state has yet to start up its operation. The union says it will not cost the state any more to allow the union to run its health plan. However, the goal of the reform law is to reduce costs, not keep them at their present levels.

Union president Karen Ginoza contends that HSTA's "track record" shows it can provide better coverage for its members, but that record is based on ambiguous numbers that may include overpayments from state coffers. Further, the union's health plan can negotiate for lower premiums because it insures its present younger members, leaving the state to cover retirees who are older and have higher health risks.

Ginoza says the union will "keep coming back" to the Legislature to get its way. HSTA should reconsider. It should give the state the opportunity to work out the new system before persisting in its self-absorbed crusade.

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Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.

Don Kendall, Publisher

Frank Bridgewater, Editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, Assistant Editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, Assistant Editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.com

Mary Poole, Editorial Page Editor, 529-4790; mpoole@starbulletin.com
John Flanagan, Contributing Editor 294-3533; jflanagan@starbulletin.com

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