Dayton Daily News...
Health section in SB 5 confusing
Bill is unclear on what public workers should pay for health care
Laura Bischoff  

October  21,  2011 

COLUMBUS — The TV ads and campaign literature from supporters of Senate Bill 5 make it sound simple and appealing: Public employees would have to pay at least 15 percent of their health care insurance coverage. 

But within the 302-page bill, it isn’t very clear what that means. 

The section regarding health care for state workers says they must pay at least 15 percent of their “premiums.” 

Another section regarding local workers says no public employer shall agree to union contracts that require the employer to pay more than 85 percent of the “cost” paid for health care benefits. 

Local government groups are scratching their heads about what should be counted. 

Insurance premiums, wellness programs, co-pays, deductibles could all be lumped in as health care costs. 

“No clue,” said Susan Cave, executive director of the Ohio Municipal League when asked what should be included. 

“A lot of people have asked me that same question. ‘Premiums’ is pretty clear. ‘Costs’ is not so clear. No one is quite sure how this will be interpreted. It was one of the inconsistencies in the bill.” 

The Ohio Municipal League, which has 780 members, did not take a position on Senate Bill 5, which will appear on the statewide ballot as Issue 2. 

Dan Kaman, spokesman for the state Department of Administrative Services, said the legislation is written to give local jurisdictions flexibility on how to implement the 15 percent mandate on health care coverage. 

“That is open to interpretation by the locals. Since there are different plans out there for the locals, I imagine that is why it was written that way,” Kaman said. “It’s a flexibility issue.” 

Jason Mauk, spokesman for Building a Better Ohio who also served on the Ohio Senate staff when Senate Bill 5 was debated and passed, said the 15 percent applies to any health care costs paid by the employer on behalf of the worker. “The bottom line is whatever the employer is paying for health care, the employee has to pay 15 percent of it,” Mauk said. He added, “Some attorneys (against Issue 2) are trying to play semantics with this part of the bill to create confusion.” 

Opponents of Senate Bill 5 say there will be confusion. “There is going to be a lot of unintended consequences that will be figured out by attorneys about what 15 percent of health care costs means,” said Mark Sanders, president of the Ohio Association of Professional Firefighters and a Cincinnati Fire Department lieutenant. In Cincinnati, firefighters pay 5 percent of their health care premiums but could end up paying more than 15 percent of the total costs if they meet their high deductible and make co-pays for office visits, he said. 

State Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, who voted against the bill, said the legislation imposes different standards on state and local workers for no logical reason and the 15 is an arbitrary goal. The goal should be aligning labor and management to hold down health care costs, he said. 

Read this and other articles at the Dayton Daily News