Here’s my favorite quote that surfaced yesterday:

Arizona State Senator Lori Klein, Herman Cain’s Arizona campaign chair, quoted by CBS News: In politics, she said, “we want a virgin to do a hooker’s job.”

Ooops. An abbreviated version of this entry was posted by accident this morning.

Isn’t language a great thing? That third-person phrasing makes it sound like the accident just happened. I didn’t have to cop to the error at all! Spin in its purest form.

But, indeed, I did err. So I’ve plunged back in with a fuller description of the court case, below.

The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month against the HGEA and several individual union members who challenged the use surplus funds held by the Hawaii Public Employees Health Fund, predecessor of the Employer-Union Health Benefits Trust Fund, for purposes other than improving benefits or reducing premium costs.

At issue were millions in refunds paid by insurers like HMSA when actual costs came in below premium payments for each annual period.

Plaintiffs contended they had vested property rights which were unconstitutionally taken by the state when the legislature amended the law to return the employers’ share of surpluses to the state and counties.

Their lawsuit claimed employees had been overcharged because the surpluses should have been used to reduce premiums, and sought damages because they weren’t informed premiums might be refunded.

Further, they argued that “laws directing that the premium surpluses be returned to employers are unconstitutional,” (quoting from the decision), and that the health fund trustees, and the state, breached their fiduciary duties to members.

The Circuit Court ruled against the plaintiffs and tossed the case out back in 2006. The appeal has been slowly moving along since then.

In this 29-page ruling, the Intermediate Court rejected the union’s various contentions and held that the statutes governing the health fund “did not create vested property rights or contractual obligations” that prevented refunding of premium surpluses.

The opinion does trace the evolution from the health fund to the EUTF, and those more knowledgeable may glean some useful points relevant to the broader issue of whether changes can be made in employee health plans without stumbling over constitutionally-protections of vested employee benefits. That, of course, is the bigger battle going on as the state looks at was to reduce long-term liabilities.