At last week’s meeting of the Hawaii Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund, it was publicly announced that approximately 21,000 members submitted forms to move to the PPO health plan administered by HMSA instead of staying with the “default” HMA plan.
If that’s still true when all the smoke clears, it will mean HMSA held on to nearly 2/3 of its plan participants despite the EUTF decision that initially “defaulted” all HMSA members over to HMA.
It’s a better outcome for HMSA than the earlier shakeout at the Hawaii State Teachers Association, where at least 2/3 of teachers remained in a new HMA-administered plan.
But it’s an even bigger boost for HMA, which went from about 700 EUTF members to something around 12,000.
Both companies say they are looking forward to the competition.
When I was at the State Capitol yesterday to pick up paperwork to be filed in order to work as a session staffer during the upcoming session, the House Accounting Office was fielding questions about the EUTF health insurance plans. Turns out there is still a tremendous amount of confusion and anxiety about the EUTF offerings among the hundreds of people being hired to staff the 2010 legislative session.
Then there’s EUTF administrator Jim Williams, who is stepping down at the end of the year and moving to HSTA, where he has reportedly accepted a 3-month contract as executive director effective January 1, 2010, according to a Facebook post by Big Island teacher Paul Daugherty.
Daugherty also reports that HSTA interim executive director Dwight Takeno, who has also been serving as the teachers’ union chief negotiator, is leaving to take a human resources position at the University of Hawaii.
I met Takeno a decade ago when he was the young assistant to UPW state director Gary Rodrigues. This was during the period before Rodrigues was indicted and while the UPW and it’s parent union, AFSCME, were attempting to sidestep or dismiss allegations about misconduct by the union leader. I hope Takeno learned the right lessons from that experience.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I guess this sends a message to the EUTF that it does matter to us who administers our EUTF plan. Given that historically only a very small percentage of EUTF members ever take action of fill out the form, (we are spoiled and used to it being so easy to just not do anything and letting it ride), having that many actually take the time to fill out the form to remain with HMSA is a clear message. I wonder how many of the members who were gifted to HMA actually wanted them or followed the historical trend of not doing anything. Whatever, this was a gift to a company that needed to boost its business. I just keep wondering what was provided for this gift?? Further intriguing that HSTA, which also made HMA the default, will now have the former EUTF administrator as its exec director. Hmm… What kind of deal did HMA give HSTA, and now Mr. Williams will be exec director of HSTA?? Just a coincidence? We’ll never know .
Ian, I have a completely off-topic question… I have a friend who is also a staffer (his title has “research” in it) when the Leg is in session. Last session was his first stint and I was surprised to learn that he was able to collect unemployment insurance in the subsequent (almost) 9-month out-of-session period. Is this a common occurrence with staffers … work the session and then collect unemployment until the next session starts?