The Sacramento Bee
March 21, 2002
By Lisa Rapaport
Some of the biggest changes could come in CalPERS’ two self-insured plans, which provide benefits to 20 percent of its 1.2 million members. The pension plan has seen financial risk grow in its self-insured plans as sicker, costlier patients flock to them as HMOs abandon outlying counties and some unions with healthier members shop for coverage outside CalPERS.
In response, the pension fund might drop all of its HMO contacts in favor of a single, statewide self-insured plan.
Larry Levitt of the Kaiser Family Foundation:
“You have to be very big to even contemplate fully self-funding and taking the HMOs out of the equation completely. It’s hard to imagine many employers besides CalPERS pulling this off.”
Comment: If CalPERS, the nation’s second largest provider of health benefit services (next to FEHBP), recognizes the wisdom of excluding middlemen health plans and establishing a single, statewide program for California state employees and retirees, then when will the rest of us finally recognize that a single, statewide, publicly-administered program will better serve the health care needs for all of us? Would CalPERS consider letting us join in on the initial discussions to consider whether it might be wise to establish a single payer system for the entire state? The California Health Care Options Project has established the credibility of this approach. It is time to look at all options, especially those with credibility.