foxpolitics.comwhats really going on in the fox cities
3/10/2010
Should more local governments re-examine health insurance options?

Duh. Yes!!! Some tremendous pieces have received great play this week. People respond to monetary incentives. EVEN when it comes to health care. Imagine that.

Monday’s FoxPolitics News included an amazing piece by Alan Borsuk that appeared in Sunday’s Journal Sentinel. Rob Henken, with the Public Policy Forum, discusses Borsuk’s ‘intriguing’ simple solution to saving MPS $millions in insurance costs.

Henken takes the Borsuk discussion further, touting pieces of the Forum’s recent report on the potential restructuring of Milwaukee County government. at Milwaukee County health care offerings.
Like MPS, the county provides a Preferred Provider Option (PPO) that offers access to a wide network of providers with co-pays and deductibles, as well as a traditional HMO option. Unlike MPS, however, the county charges much higher monthly premiums to subscribe to the PPO plan. For example, union employees pay $35 per month for an individual and $70 for a family for the HMO, and $75/$150 for the PPO.

Largely because of this cost differential (as well as, perhaps, the robust nature of the HMO plan), we found that 81% of the 4,322 active county health care subscribers selected the HMO plan in 2009. Conversely, of the 5,996 retired health care subscribers, who pay no monthly premium and, therefore, are not incentivized by lower premium co-payments to select the HMO, 71% selected the PPO plan. That plan costs about $2,000 more annually for families and $5,000 more for individuals.
Read the whole of Henken’s piece. He closes with mention of the Green Bay Press Gazette article also included in Monday’s FP News – Public employee health benefits squeeze taxpayers. Good stuff. Heaven knows, we may be getting somewhere on controlling public employee compensation costs!

Jo Egelhoff, FoxPolitics.net