Struggling union health trust increases payment burden for CCSD teachers
Scrambling to stem “immediate cash flow issues,” the union-created health trust that covers Clark County’s 18,000 public school teachers and their dependents soon will require its members to shoulder more of the costs for doctor office visits.
Effective July 23, the financially embattled Teachers Health Trust will charge a coinsurance rate of 20 percent for all medical expenses, in addition to existing copayments, in order for the trust to “stay within (its) means,” according to a notice posted to its website.
The notice said a participant of the trust’s Diamond Plan would pay an additional $16 for an office visit with eligible medical expenses totaling $100. That is an increase of 80 percent from the $20 that participants currently pay per office visit.
Participants of the lower Platinum Plan would pay an extra $14 — or nearly 50 percent more — for an office visit with eligible medical expenses totaling $100.
The coinsurance rates “could end as early as November (and) most likely, no later than December,” according to the notice.
The Clark County School District and the Clark County Education Association, which created and controls the trust, would not make representatives available for an interview on the cost increases and the health trust’s financial condition Tuesday. But in an emailed statement, teacher union President Vikki Courtney said that the medical plan changes will move forward with the district’s “full knowledge and cooperation.”
“These changes are temporary,” Courtney added. “They afford our participants the quality health care benefit they have come to expect, while we work with (the district) to develop a new health plan.”
Her statement did not detail the new plan, which the union will introduce “in the near future.”
Unlike some other employees of the nation’s fifth-largest district, teachers and their families don’t receive insurance through the district, which contributes $546 per teacher per month to the union’s trust for that coverage. District payments totaled $116 million last school year.
Teachers also contribute to the trust through paycheck deductions, which topped $25 million last school year.
Still, the trust has been operating in the red for years, with cost of claims outstripping revenue since at least 2010.
An audit released last November cites a loss of nearly $3.9 million, up from $1.4 million in the 2012-13 school year. Meanwhile, net assets available for plan benefits tumbled from $41.8 million in the 2011-12 school year to less than $27.9 million last school year.
As is routine, the trust ends every fiscal year with incurred claims not yet paid. But that amount increased from $12 million at the end of the 2012-13 school year to $13.8 million at the end of last school year.
The trust also has exhausted its cash reserves, which sat at a hefty $7.7 million in June 2013 and sank to zero within one year.
The union did not respond to questions regarding its current financial state, but the notice of plan changes notes that medical care, prescription drugs and new taxes from the federal health care law have increased expenses while revenue has remained flat.
“We have been able to subsidize this difference through the use of (cash) reserves,” the notice said. “However, we can no longer continue to sustain this practice.”
