This afternoon's meeting of the legislative task force on resolving the public school employee (PSE) insurance crisis brought a positive development: The system will end the year with over $17 million in net assets. Yet as a survey presented by a teacher indicates, school employees are still suffering as much as always.
The legislative task force created to study the public school employee insurance problem doesn't like the idea to cut school districts loose to shop for insurance on their own, but there's support for the proposal to merge the teacher insurance system with the state employee system. Meanwhile, a Republican legislator has an innovative proposal that could potentially make a big difference.
Combining the insurance systems for public school employees and state employees might help teachers with premiums in the short run, but unless it's accompanied by a big infusion of cash it will harm state employees. As for combining retirement systems for teachers and other public workers? Not happening.
Public school employee (PSE) insurance rates for 2015 were announced today by the state board that manages the health plans for both PSEs and state workers (rates for Arkansas state employees were announced at a prior meeting).
The crisis in the public school employee (PSE) insurance system is complicated. The politics behind it are complicated. The solutions just passed by the legislature to once again shore up the troubled fund — those are complicated, too. But the underlying reason behind the fund’s insolvency is simple: the public isn't paying enough for its share of PSE insurance.