Scott Walker administration: 10 percent jump in premiums without self-insurance
And revised estimates released by the Walker administration also show the state would save about
The announcement from top officials in Walker's administration is part of a renewed push to convince lawmakers to move forward with Walker's self-insurance proposal despite a promise from the state's budget committee to reject the idea, and was met with questions from critics about the legitimacy of the new figures.
"Self-insurance allows us to get a taxpayer savings of
The
But critics say the Walker administration's numbers are misleading because bids for health plans aren't due until
And
"The projection violates the integrity of the state's proven bid-negotiate process and ignores its effectiveness," said
Nygren said Friday in a statement that Walker administration officials are being disingenuous when saying by moving to a self-insurance model, the state could avoid paying the ACA health insurer fee, or what's known as an "Obamacare tax."
"The Obamacare tax has never been collected and there's no evidence to show it will be collected in the future," Nygren said.
Nygren also said the savings are largely based on the use of reserves collected by the
Dougherty said that the 7 percent increase in premiums that Hurlburt said the budget proposal expects is "nearly double the performance of the fully insured program over the last nine years."
"The only way the state can be certain of its costs -- or savings -- is to fix its payments with a fully insured benefit program," he said in a statement. "The health plans pay the cost of fully insured medical services and bear the risk of unexpected increases in medical costs. Fully insured premiums do not change during a contract period."
In the last nine years, final premium increases averaged 3.7 percent and the negotiated difference between preliminary and final bids equaled
Walker in his 2017-19 spending plan proposed switching about 236,000 state workers and family members from a competitive HMO model, in place since 1984, to a self-insured program like that used in at least 20 states. The idea was one of the governor's most ambitious and contentious proposals this budget cycle.
Under Walker's plan, the state would pay benefits directly and assume the risk for losses instead of buying insurance from 18 HMOs. Self-insurance could save the state money or could cost more, according to consultants' reports.
Deductibles would
increase 400 percent
The new projections presented Friday also said annual deductibles would increase about 400 percent, or
The public plea to revive the proposal comes days after the state's
One way would be to divide the states into regions that insurers must cover and reducing the number of insurers, according to
Wieske said Friday it's unclear how much savings that plan would generate because it's unknown which insurers would participate.
Officials with the
"This new information confirms that the current fully insured model will be much costlier than moving to a self-funded approach," the letter from GIB chairman
A spokesman for
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