{"id":7611,"date":"2015-11-19T10:47:57","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T16:47:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=7611"},"modified":"2015-11-19T10:47:57","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T16:47:57","slug":"consultant-recommends-self-insurance-for-state-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=7611","title":{"rendered":"Consultant Recommends Self-Insurance for State Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Wisconsin Group Insurance Board <a href=\"http:\/\/etf.wi.gov\/boards\/agenda-items-2015\/gib1117\/agenda.pdf\">met<\/a>\u00a0Tuesday and\u00a0discussed\u00a0a <a href=\"http:\/\/etf.wi.gov\/boards\/agenda-items-2015\/gib1117\/item3ar.pdf\">report<\/a>\u00a0(below) recommending self-insurance for state employees beginning in 2018. The board is scheduled to meet and\u00a0vote on the recommendation on February 17.<\/p>\n<p>Currently state employees can choose from 18 insurers, and state employees comprise 14 percent of the state&#8217;s health insurance market. Under self-insurance, the state would pay for benefits directly and assume risk. A private insurer would likely be hired to manage the program for the state.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.segalco.com\/#PublicSector\">Segal Consulting<\/a> maintains a switch to self-insurance could save the state $42 million. A\u00a0preliminary report from Segal in March suggested savings of $50-70 million, while a 2012 Deloitte report noted self-insurance could save the state $20 million but had the potential to cost as much as $100 million.<\/p>\n<p>The Assembly passed a bill Monday\u00a0that would require Joint Finance Committee approval of any self-insurance contract. A spokesperson for Governor Scott Walker\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/host.madison.com\/news\/state-and-regional\/consultant-recommends-state-move-to-self-insurance-model\/article_98448c82-a510-5405-891a-c16a59cd195f.html\">told<\/a> the\u00a0Associated Press the governor would likely sign the proposal. Committee co-chair Representative John Nygren (R-Marinette) <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jsonline.com\/news\/statepolitics\/consultant-state-could-save-40-million-with-self-insurance-program-b99618288z1-351141681.html\">said<\/a> the committee will work with the Legislative Fiscal Bureau to determine how self-insurance may impact the state&#8217;s insurance market after the oversight bill is signed into law.<\/p>\n<p>The Group Insurance Board <a href=\"http:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=7351\">approved<\/a> several changes to state employee health plans earlier this year in an effort to cut costs to the state.\u00a0Much of the savings will be realized through new deductibles and doubled\u00a0out-of-pocket expenses for workers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block;\"><a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View WI Group Insurance Board Segal Report on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/doc\/290065733\/WI-Group-Insurance-Board-Segal-Report\">WI Group Insurance Board Segal Report<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"doc_53472\" class=\"scribd_iframe_embed\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/embeds\/290065733\/content?start_page=1&amp;view_mode=scroll&amp;show_recommendations=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-auto-height=\"false\" data-aspect-ratio=\"undefined\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Wisconsin Group Insurance Board met\u00a0Tuesday and\u00a0discussed\u00a0a report\u00a0(below) recommending self-insurance for state employees beginning in 2018. The board is scheduled to meet and\u00a0vote on the recommendation on February 17. Currently state employees can choose from 18 insurers, and state employees&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=7611\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[132,138],"class_list":["post-7611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-the-state","tag-employee-trust-funds","tag-group-insurance-board","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7611"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7621,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611\/revisions\/7621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}