Kentucky members lobby against higher out-of-pocket costs and fewer benefits

Kentucky governor Ernie Fletcher’s attempt to launch a cost-savings overhaul of the public employee healthcare program was grounded this fall in the Legislature, which unanimously approved its own plan that maintains benefits and premiums in 2005.

Member mobilization and legislative action prompted the Legislature to reject Gov. Fletcher’s changes, which would have cost employees several hundred dollars to as much as $830 more a year, says Lee Jackson, president of the Kentucky Association of State Employees (KASE) and a member of the AFT Public Employees program and policy council.

Specifically, state employees represented by KASE and teachers represented by the state’s National Education Association affiliate responded to their respective union’s call to contact lawmakers in opposition to the governor’s plan.

KASE also delivered a healthcare petition to the governor and leaders of the House and Senate, which was signed by more than 3,000 people. “We kept the pressure on and we got a lot of press,” Jackson says.

Gov. Fletcher signed the Legislature’s plan Oct. 19, just months after he unilaterally switched to a single carrier and revamped the structure by upping premiums, instituting deductibles, reducing the number of providers to one per county and changing from a system of co-payments for hospital visits, doctor’s appointments and prescription drugs to a more expensive co-insurance scheme.

KASE was the only state employee organization that was called in to meet with House leadership to put the alternate plan together, notes KASE executive director Charles Wells.

It was a political and public relations defeat for Fletcher, who, after calling the special legislative session to address the healthcare program, was curiously absent from the process.

Jackson says that in addition to maintaining benefits for 2005, the legislation strengthens the Employee Health Insurance Advisory Committee, of which he is a member. Specifically, it mandates that the state submit proposed changes to the advisory committee for its input.

Jackson notes that Gov. Fletcher’s administration had not shared any of its changes with the advisory committee, which is made up of employee and government representatives.