SKGOP promotes health accounts

By Liz Boardman/Independent Staff Writer

SOUTH KINGSTOWN — The Republican Party has been sitting out the budget work sessions. Instead, said SKGOP Chairman Dave Coté, the group is concentrating on innovative solutions to fiscal problems.

On March 7, the Republican Town Committee met at Casey’s Grill & Bar in Wakefield to present their ideas for health care reform to about 35 people, including Democratic Town Committee Chairman Brendan Fogarty and former South Kingstown School Committee Chairwoman Wendy Bucci. In contrast, nearly every seat at the Town Council budget hearing that night went empty.

Sean Donnell, a pharmacist at the University of Rhode Island, and Roland Benjamin, owner of LFI Inc., a contract manufacturer for the aerospace and medical device industries, introduced consumer-driven health plans.

Under CDHPs, employees put pre-tax dollars into a special savings account. Their employers match at least a portion of that amount. The employee uses the money to pay a relatively higher deductible, but any costs above that are fully covered by the plan.

For example, an employee with a $2,000 deductible would contribute $1,000, and his employer would add the other $1,000. If the employee has a chronic illness, such as asthma, he would likely spend his $2,000 on maintenance drugs and doctor’s visits, but he would cap out after $2,000 and not pay any additional costs.

On the other hand, if the employee is healthy and doesn’t use up the $2,000 deductible, he earns interest in the savings account and the money stays with him forever.

Using a CDHP system, Benjamin told the group, LFI was able to hold the cost of health insurance steady after several years of near double-digit increases with traditional plans.

The SKGOP would like to see the CDHP option available as part of the next round of town contract negotiations, if only for new teachers and police officers.

After O’Donnell and Benjamin presented their case, former Cranston Mayor Stephen Laffey stumped for the concept. He was one of the first mayors in the nation to implement municipal CDHPs. The toughest part, he said, was getting people to accept change.

“Change happens when two snow plow drivers are having lunch and one tells the other that he had $1,000 left over in his account and he gets to keep it,” he said.

Another benefit, he said, is that “if you’re paying for part of it, you start asking questions.” As a father of five, Laffey told the audience, he started asking, “Is there a generic for that?” whenever someone in his family needed a prescription.

He added he was able to get CDHPs negotiated into contracts by making trade-offs, such as starting them with incoming employees. “In the end, we made it kind of painful to not be in the program,” he said.

Coté said the GOP would be holding workshops about CDHPs around South Kingstown and statewide. “The end result, we hope, would be the students benefiting by infusing the savings back into school programs and extracurricular activities, like languages, sports and gifted programs,” he said.

Liz Boardman can be reached at boardman@scindependent.com.

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