MT School Health Insurance Summit

January 30-31, 2024

What are the best possible outcomes of working collaboratively to create a statewide health insurance trust for MT public school employees?

Affordability for School Districts

  • Lower premium costs
  • Affordable plans regardless of school size
  • Affordable healthcare- healthier community
  • Lower rates of increases annually
  • Rates are affordable, steady and well managed.
  • Affordable cost
  • Good health care coverage that is affordable to our employees and districts
  • More affordable rates & costs to the school & EE’s
  • Great rates
  • Be able to afford insurance rates for everyone, classified staff included
  • Districts will be able to get insurance at reasonable rates- that are being well managed
  • Ability to offer more affordable health insurance
  • Frees monies for salaries and teacher supports
  • Affordable
  • School districts will be able to have affordable insurance for all
  • Significant savings freeing up resources to be used for students
  • Every district would be able to offer “affordable” health insurance to their employees within their current budgets
  • Affordable
  • Save on costs for districts

Reduced Cost for Members

  • More money in school employees’ pockets
  • More money in the pockets of employees
  • Insurance costs consume less and less of the total compensation
  • Salary increases
  • Cost of living reduced allowing schools and communities to flourish
  • People don’t go into medical debt if catastrophic issues
  • Reduce individual cost
  • Cost savings for all districts/employees
  • Montana teachers have a statewide insurance plan that is affordable with great coverage
  • The insurance will cover the entire family with a low copay and rates stay the same now and in the near future
  • Premiums are affordable to all districts & employees
  • Coverage provided based on salary or hourly wage instead of one flat rate

Health Insurance for Everyone

  • All school employees and families are covered to fit different income brackets with lower premiums for both districts and employees
  • The health of community members improves
  • Insurance options available to all district personnel at reasonable rates
  • Affordable Insurance for all school employees
  • Affordable health insurance for all employees and families
  • School health trust has provided a sustainable and affordable pool that serves the healthcare needs of our staff
  • Quality insurance coverage for all staff
  • All employees will receive PPO or better health insurance with options to choose their care
  • There will be a positive impact and a reduction in healthcare costs for districts and employees
  • Affordable health coverage for all district employees across the state
  • No district will have to worry about insuring all employees and their families
  • Benefits cover needs of all teachers/staff
  • All staff has affordable health insurance
  • All districts can afford health insurance
  • Every school employee in the state has access to affordable insurance
  • Insurance for all schools will become affordable and less burden on the taxpayers
  • All schools will have employee health insurance
  • All school personnel in the state will have affordable insurance coverage
  • More people insured/improve access
  • Increase number of individuals eligible to participate
  • Support all staff members in our state education system
  • Excellent coverage for all school
  • Capture new members to plans with the new & better benefits
  • Potential for retirees to benefit

Recruitment and Retention

  • Lower premiums make school employment more attractive in rural areas helping with teacher shortages
  • We are able to fill many more of the unfilled positions in our school districts
  • Sustainability and recruitment of staff – higher quality educators
  • Increase recruitment and retention
  • Public education becomes a more viable professional and an increase quality of students going into education
  • Health benefits differentiate employment in MT for the better
  • Health benefits become an incentive for new hires and recruitment/retention becomes easier
  • Schools can increase teacher salaries for recruitment and retention – be more competitive
  • Retention of staff and ability to recruit
  • Recruitment & retention of all school staff
  • Recruitment/retention increase for all staff (benefits package)
  • Better staff retention & recruitment
  • Recruitment/retention of staff
  • Affordable, higher quality insurance allows schools to retain and recruit excellent educators to best serve our students
  • Increase recruitment & retention of teachers and support
  • Could improve personnel recruitment if plan is solid/sustainable
  • Can use as recruitment tool for new and veteran teachers/staff
  • Helps recruit teachers/staff
  • Allow for more employees to be hired and stay
  • This will free up district funds to help recruit and fund more quality educators/staff
  • Able to recruit and retain staff
  • Recruit and find more bus drivers
  • Benefit plan becomes a recruitment bonus
  • Increase in recruitment
  • Increase in retention
  • Retain & recruit employees
  • Increase teacher recruitment and retention
  • Recruiting teachers easier
  • Retain staff
  • Attract top talent
  • Level the playing field for attracting and retaining employees
  • Help to retain staff already have
  • Retain quality staff
  • Staff retention is possible
  • Ease retention due to health insurance being the same statewide
  • More job applicants
  • Staff retention
  • Attract more qualified candidates
  • A benefit plan is developed that makes it attractive to work in education in MT
  • Less turnover in employment
  • Influx of new teachers – new staff
  • Young adults again view a career in education as fulfilling life path
  • Retaining employees, get employees from neighboring states
  • Get more people to consider teaching profession
  • Better pay & benefits so more students study to be educators

Valuing Educators/Increase in Quality of Education

  • An education system that values its employees by providing security and stability
  • A positive environment in order to facilitate learning and growth in our students
  • Show MT school employees they are important
  • Gives kids a better educational experience with more teachers and support staff
  • Higher quality education in Montana
  • Positive student outcomes/success
  • Higher quality education – better student outcomes – smaller staff: student ratios
  • Less time and effort being spent on finances, more on educational leadership

Benefits of Participating in a Larger Pool

  • Larger pool = spread risk = stabilized rates
  • Larger pool of reserves
  • Create a self-sustaining insurance pool that offers better rates and coverage than most current insurance plans
  • Cost – negotiate with providers, risk pool
  • Desired larger pool
  • Bigger pool of participant – bigger bucket to navigate risk
  • Leverage inherent efficiencies of the trust and larger pool of covered lives
  • Unified voice to attach rising healthcare costs for better options
  • Unification
  • Unified voice
  • Large pool to mitigate risk in premium increases
  • Increased negotiation power with insurers and insurance administrators
  • Risk spread out among more lives reducing claim impact on small schools
  • Network of providers is larger to fit the needs of all members
  • Possibility of more insurance providers
  • Broader networks
  • Could give school districts better leverage to get funds from state since everybody’s plan is the same
  • Attract more providers because of the better risk controls in place
  • Large, medium, small schools it all works for each
  • Not at the mercy of large insurance companies for rates
  • Alleviate financial burdens on all entities
  • Ease of adding/subtracting employees
  • Regarding RX & cost controlling measures to benefit the whole of the trust
  • Smaller district can rely on bigger numbers to sustain public execution within MT

General Fund/Budgets

  • Potentially more general funds for other commitments
  • Stability in healthcare expense for district budgeting
  • Schools can free up general fund $ for students
  • More $ for staff and schools
  • Cost savings to districts to repurposed funds
  • General fund relief
  • Easier to budget and manage
  • Cost savings to districts/employees
  • Savings to taxpayers and district as districts repurpose dollars in general fund
  • Relief to general fund
  • More funds for salaries (teachers), not being spent on insurance
  • Better fiscal management, helping local taxpayer budgets
  • Districts will have permissive levy, like all other government agencies to cover premium costs (not part of general fund budget)

Reduced/stable rates

  • Cost effective
  • Cost stability
  • Stable costs allow for better long range planning in districts
  • Stable rates – lower
  • Lower rates
  • Lower premiums for all
  • Reduce costs
  • Better rates
  • Stability that allows the focus to move toward forming a group that is healthy by individual buy in
  • Stability of rates
  • Lower rates
  • Insurance premium costs and deductibles go down
  • Manageable rate increases
  • Stable rate increases/decreases
  • Stable rates
  • Stable/predictable/affordable rates
  • A long range stable plan with predictable and affordable rates
  • Costs stay steady or decrease
  • Stable rates due to good buy in
  • Financially stable affordable
  • Rate stabilization
  • Rates stabilize/decrease
  • Stabilization
  • Costs go down across the board
  • Greatly decreases variability in years
  • Five year outlook with single digit percent increases
  • Predictable – forecast
  • Not volatile – low rate annual

Increased Benefits with Reduced Rates

  • We create a system that provides affordable quality coverage for all members
  • Cost drops and benefits increase for members
  • With enough participants, rates can remain lower and perhaps offer better plans
  • Better services at lower costs to districts
  • High quality-lower cost for all schools
  • Good insurance with lower rates
  • Lower costs/better benefits
  • Better coverage with lower premiums
  • Improved coverage
  • Lower healthcare costs and dramatically improved individual and family health of Montanans
  • Better Benefits/cost for all districts in MT – big or small
  • Excellent health care coverage
  • Benefits that meets needs
  • Same or better coverage
  • Good coverage
  • Could make coverage better for employees
  • Increase benefits
  • Lower costs, better quality of care
  • All plans maintained or improved
  • Better coverage/same coverage
  • Better rates
  • Better coverage
  • Best quality benefits and services
  • Increased quality/benefits

Increased Plans/Choices

  • Better plan choices for employees
  • More plan choices & price points
  • HSA options
  • Options/plans that can work well for a variety of people and districts
  • More flexibilities available for districts to make decisions based on what is best for kids
  • Plans to address needs
  • Offer variable plans
  • Increased options of providers
  • Potentially more plan offerings
  • Quality care statewide
  • Dental, vision is included and fully funded with the trust
  • Captive vs insured

Quality of Care/Providers

  • Emphasis on quality of care
  • Thorough plan & provider list
  • Create competition for statewide and regional providers
  • Cross section success – healthcare sector provides better service to better partners
  • Efficient and high value vendors
  • Consistent services
  • Providers are universal for all districts and employees
  • No loss of coverage due to change of insurance
  • Leveraged outreach for preventative healthcare into rural communities
  • Meaningful incentives for preventive and primary care

Equitable Health Insurance

  • Equitable coverage options for all school sizes
  • The disparity of the typical categories of “have and have nots” will diminish
  • Equal access to all providers for all districts
  • All schools have a voice
  • Members with least desirable circumstances move toward the middle – compress existing disparity upward
  • Responsive to regional differences
  • When someone needs more they get more
  • Equitable access for all insured
  • Individuals with different needs having those needs met
  • Equal access for all districts to all insurance plans
  • Shared and equal premium increases and decreases by all districts
  • There will be equity across the state and throughout districts. If a district has higher costs, it won’t hurt them within the trust
  • Participants in plan have voice at table

Increased Wellness

  • Intergenerational increase in quality of health
  • Healthier population
  • Health outcomes improve for members
  • Possible morale booster- relieve stress within districts
  • Members are healthier
  • Wellness improves
  • Minimize cost – maximize wellness
  • Ripple effect – positive student outcomes due to increased wellness of staff
  • Healthier families
  • We have a robust wellness & education program to create wise consumers & healthier employees
  • We have financially healthy, thriving health insurance trust that promotes health and wellness that all schools want to be a part of
  • Focus on preventative and mental healthcare for all employees. Wellness matters
  • Mental health of community improves as anxiety about health insurance diminishes
  • Healthier staff – fewer sub/sick days
  • Thriving and healthy school staff
  • Happy & healthy staff
  • Take out fear of being under insured

Sustainability

  • Sustain a healthy trust account that can be available for many years
  • Sustainable system of high quality and affordable healthcare coverage for MT’s public schools
  • Sustainability
  • Sustain
  • Sustainability
  • Better sustainability for districts
  • Control of rate increase
  • A sustainable and viable health insurance pool
  • Sustainable
  • Scale of trust can buffer variability and volatility of rates avoiding large assessments
  • Sustainable/affordable rates
  • Sustainable coverage for common educator illnesses
  • Sustainable/long standing
  • Small rate deviations

Autonomy/Local control

  • Districts retain some autonomy if they choose while also improving healthcare for public school employees as a whole
  • Local control is maintained by districts
  • Autonomy in plan design
  • Can keep arrangements with current network
  • Flexibility with financing health insurance costs
  • Districts with self-funded plans now that provide good benefits
  • A plan that allows for flexibility at the local level
  • Change the law to allow for more flexibility. Could law be amended?
  • Address concerns of self funded plans

Collaboration

  • Ability to work with other large groups to create better access to networks to put good healthcare back in the hands of the consumer
  • Opportunity for collaboration and building of trust
  • Having someone else’s bandwidth taken up with all this stuff – time, money, energy
  • Understanding is gained
  • Common goals
  • This collaborations fosters other collaborations
  • All for one and one for all
  • Agreement
  • Collaborative effort – Buy in by all districts (trust the process)
  • Unification of all employees – admin, certified, classified – around this potentially volatile subject as it relates to negotiations and budgets
  • Bridges gap between small and large schools
  • All districts interested in participating
  • Built trust among groups on education creates true partnerships
  • Could unite larger/smaller school districts
  • More trust among members
  • Everyone sees an improvement
  • The concerns and arguments over healthcare coverage cease and energies move on to something else

Trust Management/Governing Board

  • The trust communicates well and is trusted
  • The trust is so well formed and operating at a high level that we all look back and wonder what we were so concerned about.
  • Insurance experts are appointed to governance board – not school employees
  • Small oversight board focused on the best plan options for all and oversight to actuary and trust reserve management
  • Greater oversight of management of trust
  • Creation of a trust that effectively serves the majority of educators in MT
  • We have a knowledgeable and dynamic director that is able to negotiate advantageous rates with providers to control costs
  • The trust remains healthy and well governed and becomes the envy of teachers all across the nation
  • The trust will be successful
  • Local area agents
  • What if we had such a good and well managed trust that we wondered what we were worried about
  • Due to sound financial management the trust becomes financially stable and solvent
  • The plan trust is an attractive option that draws in the majority of Montana districts
  • Self-built and sustaining plan eliminates need to shop big companies
  • Humans and $ share focus of decision makers
  • A highly representative governing body is established which builds multiple robust health insurance plan options creating even more health plan options for all state school district employees and a healthy evolving trust grows in financial strength and responsiveness for its diverse public school district base log into the future
  • Use experts and grow education around insurance and health for all employees
  • Well organized and communicates
  • Larger book of business
  • Easier implementation within district
  • Uniforms structure across state – consistency
  • Create a new model for group health plan – break the status quo
  • Efficiency
  • To have a local agent members can visit
  • Never have to pay back $40 million because plan is managed well
  • We become financially stable with consistent rate increases (3-5%)
  • We are willing to make hard decisions
  • All non-trust members join due to operational excellence by the trust
  • To have a stable, reliable trust that recognizes that the members/families are what this is about

Public/Taxpayer Trust

  • Public trust increased as stewards of state $
  • Public gains trust in schools
  • Creates perception that socialized medicine is not scary and influences the public at large to demand insurance comparable to ours
  • Trust is built between districts, associations, community, legislators, public
  • Great P.R. for schools- Problem solving
  • Show taxpayers our fiscal responsibility in spending funds
  • Better local economics

Legislature Support for Public Education

  • With success of this HB332, maybe additional legislative support for school funding
  • State continues to fund public ed
  • Take the $40 million from legislature
  • Convince MT Legislature to put more funding towards public school initiatives that require collaborations
  • The $40 million state contribution will fulfill the need for startup funds
  • A ten person board made up of ten geographical parts of the state to oversee management and make sure it is member driven and not administrative
  • A trust run by the people it will affect and not by the bureaucrats who it does not affect