AUGUSTA, Maine — The union that represents most of Maine’s public school teachers has abandoned its efforts to block a law that requires school districts’ health insurers to provide the districts with data on their employees’ claims history.
The Maine Education Association said it was dropping its lawsuit against Maine’s insurance superintendent, Eric Cioppa, because it was unlikely to succeed if it kept fighting the law’s implementation in court.
“For financial reasons, it made no sense to continue the lawsuit,” MEA president Lois Kilby-Chesley said in a prepared statement. “We will comply with the law.”
Gov. Paul LePage welcomed the MEA’s decision. “School systems can now generate savings from their health insurance programs to reinvest in the classroom instead of wasting time and money fighting frivolous lawsuits,” he said in a statement.
The case centered around a law the Legislature passed and LePage signed last year that allowed school districts to request their employees’ aggregate insurance claims history from their insurers so they could more easily shop around for cheaper health insurance coverage.
Nearly all of Maine’s school districts insure their teachers and many of their other employees through the MEA Benefits Trust, which has contracted with Anthem Blue Cross to provide insurance. The MEA plan covers about 70,000 people, said Christine Burke, the Benefits Trust’s executive director.
The MEA last October filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Maine, claiming that forcing Anthem to release employees’ claims history would violate the union’s contract with the insurer, and that the employee claims history was the property of the MEA Benefits Trust and couldn’t be taken from the union.
A federal judge in February denied the union’s request for an injunction that would have stopped the state from enforcing the new law. The union subsequently took its case to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston. That court ruled late last month that the union stood little chance of succeeding in its efforts to block the law.
The union decided to drop its lawsuit following that opinion.
“We were just throwing good money after bad in trying to litigate this,” Burke said. “It just didn’t make sense.”
Burke said about 70 school districts so far have requested the claims history for their employees. It’s uncertain, however, whether that means many districts will end up pursuing coverage outside of the MEA Benefits Trust.
If many districts end up leaving the MEA plan, Burke said, the districts that stay will inevitably be those that are more expensive to insure.
“If a number of the good-performing districts decide to go off on their own, we’ll have difficulty staying afloat,” she said. “We’re going to fight really hard to stay alive. We have to show the districts the value of staying with the trust.”
LePage likes this, well then we all know what that means, it won’t result in anything good for employees.
Glad to hear Lepage likes it. It also looks like organized labors decision to drop a frivolous lawsuit against basically the overburdened taxpayers of the State of Maine will actually save the taxpayers money, I assume that is a good thing, and should further bolster education opportunities for our students to boot. Sounds like a win-win to me.
Your’s sounds like a voice from the “Wal-Mart Nation” where everything that is cheaper is seen as better. Have we not learned yet that such is simply not true? Wal-Mart sells trash. You get what you pay for. Make teaching less and less attractive (as LePage seems hell bent to do/LePage has always sold trash) and it won’t take long before the only applicants you’ll have for such positions will be people better suited for stalking shelves in Wal-Mart. Wait a minute, do you work for Wal-Mart? Not that there’s anything wrong with that…but I sure would hope to have more qualified individuals guiding my children through their grade school years.
And you are talkin’ “trash”. Your WalMart/Mardens comparision with teacher’s insurance coverage is apples and oranges.
No I am not a member of Walmart Nation (althought I dont see that as relivent. ) I just grew up with parents ( both Teamsters) instilling in me a work ethic based on providing my employer or my customers with a full days effort.
When a workers rate of pay is the controling factor on the amount of effort they put forth, then the worker my liberal friend has become part of the problem not the solution.
Wait till i go to wal mart i can buy a product at the dollar store much cheaper than at walmart . The product cost over 2 dollars and something at wal mart its called the works an it really works great
Tell me why the insurers and teachers union should benefit with a secret cozy deal from our tax dollars?
People shop Walmart because they sell good products that many can afford. Just because you maybe able too afford more expensive products does not guarantee your bath room tissue is superior!
Gov. Paul LePage welcomed the MEA’s decision. “School systems can now generate savings from their health insurance programs to reinvest in the classroom instead of wasting time and money fighting frivolous lawsuits,” he said in a statement.
Sounds like a massive misrepresentation of what’s happening. Have your position and support it on the merits. You raise flags when you use blatant lies to support yourself.
Which lie was that? Please???
The decision means that insurance companies will be able to “cherry pick” schools and districts with lower claim frequency. Those with higher claims frequency (thus less profitable) will be forced to stay with a plan whose rates will quickly skyrocket. This may be perfectly moral and acceptable for auto insurance and many other forms of casualty insurance where the insuance holder has quite a bit of control over the risks he/she presents. Health care, in most of the civilized world, is considered real “shared risk”. This strategy has worked for the mutual good in Maine. It protected retirees and other elderly from being singled out for higher rates. It protected families or smaller school systems that might have had a rate spike due to the birth of a child with severe health problems. The shared risk strategy kept the avarage person from being subject to the profit whims of insurance companies. But then a pompous, arrogant, short-sighted group of buffoons like LePage and the Heritage cronies derailed it. Why? Not to free up funds for use in schools but simply to weaken unions and thereby continue the consolidation of wealth and power by the already wealthiest and most powerful 1% to 2% of the population. We need shared risk in health care and our elected representatives should be ashamed of what they have done.
I bow down to your comment, hope it makes its way to the top where it belongs! I’d like it twice if they’d let me.
An it could break down to were individuals would pay more with in the school depending on there age an medical history .
Unions should be weakened, they’re a primary cause for political corruption.
Your trickle down government philosophy hasn’t worked well, because it can’t, the economic stagnation of the last 4 years is proof.
And if someone wants health insurance, they should buy it, just like any other type of insurance.
Speaking of consolidation of wealth & power, know that George Soros has donated $1million to obama.
The ‘2%’ dog don’t hunt anymore, it’s accepted as nothing but hype.
What this means is that the union are on the way to not getting kickbacks from the insurers with taxpayer money.
Tell me more about the kickbacks. Are you referring to returned premiums that are used to buy down the rate so the taxpayer needn’t pay more?
If things are as you imply why were you folks trying so hard to hide details?
The union gave up because they were told they could not win. Spin it however you want but the suit was frivolous and was dropped in order to avoid more embarrassment.
Well here I am, visiting BDN for the first time. The PPH shut us out of commentary unless we all went through Facebook. I have to say that anything Lepage agrees with must be bad for the state. Lepage is one big useless rotting log.
“School systems can now generate savings from their health insurance programs to reinvest in the classroom instead of wasting time and money fighting frivolous lawsuits,”
WHAT A LAUGH – This from the Lepage administration who have earned quite a reputation for doing the same at the national level. How about stopping the WASTE of MY tax money?
This law was unnecessary to start with. Group insurers over 51 or more employees already had the right to access to the aggregate claims information from the previous insurer. And group insurance premiums for plans with 2-50 employees are not dependent upon the claims history.
A decent broker will perform this due diligence on his/her own, the district doesn’t need to provide this directly.
What no-nothing sponsored this law, anyway?
If that is true why was the Bangor Superintendent of schools unable to get the data previously?
If school districts and the local Associations negotiate leaving the MEABT, they need to be prepared for even higher rates in another year or so. Maine School Management Association used to offer a competitive health insurance package, but their rates began to climb quickly and many districts abandoned them.
The likelihood that any short-term savings will be used for classrooms is low; I expect that most school systems will be pressured into lowering their budgets so as to decrease property taxes. The long-term implications are that rates will go up and school systems will have to hire people just to keep track of insurance costs and rates so as to negotiate the best deals they can year-to-year.
Are you a union member or union employee? Why else would you have a problem with school districts looking for cheaper ways to do things? If it isn’t cheaper they will find that out also….. Why do you find it beneficial to have a secret union-insurance company lock on taxpayer dollars?
This can help all districts lower their insurance costs. Districts that promote healthy lifestyles will see lower premiums, as it should be. I have noticed that a lot of teachers in southern Maine are overweight/obese (by BMI government standards based on visual observations average women is 5’5”, weight of 155# at that height is overweight). People need to understand that the driving force behind insurance premiums is health care costs. The driving force behind health care costs is poor lifestyle choices. Of course, not everything is preventable but smoking, eating too much, exercising too little, drinking too much, drugs, etc are all major factors in preventable health issues.