Like the MGEC labor agreement, your healthcare as a State employee is negotiated at the bargaining table. But there are some key differences between contract negotiations and healthcare negotiations.
The first is timing. The worlds of healthcare and the state’s budget biennium do not line up; it isn’t feasible to have one contract operate with two sets of timelines. As a result, while what happens in healthcare negotiations influences and is referenced in the regular contract, they operate separately in practice.
Secondly, like almost all public employers, there is only one healthcare system that is used by nearly all employees. Each union can’t, for example, provide their own set of benefits. Having one set of plans available to everyone provides an economy of scale that allows us to have more leverage with the providers, at least in theory. And it certainly simplifies the administration of healthcare.
The third, most distinctive, aspect to healthcare negotiation is that it is done as a coalition. That is, all the unions that represent state employees work together to speak with one voice. This is a common format among large public employers, and at the state it is referred to as the Joint Labor Management committee. MGEC’s envoy to these meetings is Blake Nelson; Blake has been in this leadership role with the JLM for a number of years.
We are currently closer to the beginning of the negotiation process, not the end. The claims data over the last year show that the plan is spending more on claims than it is taking in. This would normally justify a premium increase that is the same as the overage, but there is also an overly large amount of money in the self-funded account. The current strategy is to react to the current and projected future spending increase by raising premiums slightly; this is seen as a better plan than to have premiums that might have to be dramatically increased in two or three years. (This type of increase happened a decade ago and members found it to be disruptive.) This smaller premium increase is combined with spending down the reserve fund to a more appropriate level.
We will communicate the details of the negotiations as they become available.