Education campaign needed on GHLI privatization plan

I join Maria Pangelinan’s alarm about the Retirement Fund’s plan to privatize the government health insurance program. The Fund, it seems, is quick to spend money to hire consultants to study the program’s privatization but has done little to educate its members of the prospective changes to the program.

The Fund needs to address this matter before they even propose a “cafeteria-style” health insurance private program, much more so if there would only be two servings (proposers). The Fund, at the very least, should educate its members on what the proposals entail and what options are available for its members before they are faced with no other choice but to choose a program that would not cover pre-existing conditions or will do so only with increased premiums that’s as high by as much as 300 percent of their present premium payments. If someone with dependents is presently paying $160 per month for the high option coverage, their new premium, if they have pre-existing conditions like diabetes, or something similar, could increase to $500 monthly. That is, if a provider will even provide coverage for pre-existing conditions.

Those members with pre-existing conditions who decide to have health insurance coverage could very well eat up two-thirds of their monthly pension just to have high option health insurance coverage for themselves and their dependents. Their only other option would be to give up health insurance coverage altogether and take their chances with their health until they reach the age when they can be covered by Medicare. And, since Medicare is the second largest federal budget item, the Congress could very well, very soon, increase the age in which coverage would take effect.

The Saipan Tribune recently translated into the Chamorro language an op-ed by Mr. William Stewart on this very issue. Someone thought that it was important and necessary that everyone, including those GHLI members who do not read the English language, should be informed about the impending unpleasant proposal that the Fund plans to offer its members.

No one disputes that the government’s health insurance program is a problem that needs fixing; it’s not as if the Fund’s plans to fix the program is malicious. Admittedly, I neither have nor do I propose a solution to the problem. That is the Fund’s responsibility. All Maria, I and others, are asking, and rightfully so, is that the Fund educate its members, through meetings, letters, television and radio programs in the Carolinian, Chamorro and English languages on what to expect in terms of coverage and what to expect in the potentially immense increase to the cost of premiums once the Fund proceeds with the privatization of the health insurance program. With their data on each member’s coverage and payments for actual charges by health providers, it may also be possible for the Fund to individualize each member’s prospective premium in their education program strategy.

The need for the Fund’s health insurance members’ education has never been greater or more urgent. For some reason, however, I have this uncanny feeling that the Fund is waiting until after the November election before they make public their decision. This is unfair.

Juan S. Tenorio
Saipan