State employees, teachers and agency retirees would see their insurance premiums jump 20 percent next year under a House proposal to fill a $250 million shortfall in the state's health benefits program.
The shortfall would also be made up by using money earmarked for Medicaid and by getting more health care money from school districts for noncertified personnel, such as bus drivers.
The House Appropriations Committee is expected to vote Thursday on the proposed budget for fiscal 2012, which includes the fix for the health benefits plan. The measure will then head to the full House for a vote.
State officials discovered recently that they underestimated the cost of the program, which insures 694,000 state workers, agency retirees and dependents and school system employees.
The cost of health care has increased. The number of retirees in the plan is increasing. Meanwhile, cutbacks in state employees mean there are fewer younger, healthier workers paying into the plan.
In the past, the state might have filled the hole with reserves. But former Gov. Sonny Perdue and lawmakers used the reserves to shore up previous state budgets.
If the full burden of the most recent shortfall had been placed solely on employees and retirees, the premium increase could have reached 67 percent, House Speaker David Ralston said Tuesday.
“That would be devastating for teachers that have not gotten a raise as well as support professionals,” Calvine Rollins, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, said of paying more for health benefits. “The cost of living has steadily increased, but no raises have been given. Also, teachers have been furloughed so actually, their salaries have decreased.”
A 67 percent increase would have meant an extra $100 to $200 or more per month for many. A 20 percent increase will mean about an extra $15 to $80 per month for employees and retirees, depending on their plan, whether they are covering dependents and other factors.
Employees, on average, pay 25 percent of the cost of their health insurance, and the government 75 percent.
Ralston said he was glad House budget writers came up with a way to avoid a 67 percent premium increase.
"I have had people burning calculators up and getting the proverbial fine-tooth comb out over the last 48 hours," he said. "I am pleased we were able to find a way to soften the impact of this on our state employees and retirees. We will continue to look at it as we go through the process, but we have moved the line of scrimmage way back and we've got it back at a point were it is a lot less painful than it would have been at 67 percent."
The overall budget for fiscal 2012 would increase state spending slightly, from about $18 billion to $18.16 billion. As in the past, most of the money would go into education and health care. The proposal contains no cost-of-living raises for 200,000 state employees and teachers, who haven't received such raises since the recession began hammering state finances.
State K-12 school funding would remain about the same as it is this year, when many districts had to furlough staffers and cut school days to balance their budgets.
House members proposed lessening the cut Gov. Nathan Deal proposed for school nurses. Deal recommended cutting funding for school nurses from $27.5 million to $24.7 million. The House Appropriations Committee is recommending the state spend $26.4 million.
Lawmakers also put more money than Deal proposed into some of their favorite programs. For instance, Deal proposed cutting a special engineering scholarship for Mercer University students by more than a third, but House members restored the money in their version of the budget. They also put more money into HOPE scholarships for private college students.
Under the House plan, doctors, radiologists, therapists and other health care providers would take only half of the payment cuts first proposed by Deal, saving them about $21 million. Dental, vision and podiatry services for adults on Medicaid also would not be eliminated, as Deal proposed.
House members proposed adding a few construction projects to the budget, including $2.2 million for a public safety/allied health and economic development building at Lanier Technical College in Hall County. Deal, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, and Deal's House floor leader, Doug Collins, are from Hall County.
Staff writer D. Aileen Dodd contributed to this article.
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