Wisconsin Gubernartorial Candidate Walker proposes letting schools, government units use lower-cost state health plan

Lee Bergquist:

Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker proposed a plan he says would potentially save school districts and local units of government more than $300 million in health care costs.

Walker, a Republican candidate for governor, said his proposal would allow local units of government to switch from health plans that have high premiums to the state's lower-cost employee health plan.

Walker said his proposal could save school districts $68 million and local governments up to $242 million annually in health care costs.

He cautioned, however, that the savings estimate for local units of government is impossible to estimate because there is no central database of what municipalities pay for health care. To make his projections, he used data of the potential savings at school districts and applied those figures to the state's more than 200,000 local public employees.

Walker said the biggest reduction would come from Milwaukee Public Schools, which he said could realize $20 million a year in savings.

Locally, the Madison School District's use of WPS has long been controversial due to its high cost versus alternatives, such as GHC, among others.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 23, 2010 6:45 AM
Subscribe to this site via RSS/Atom: Newsletter signup | Send us your ideas