A week after canceling a request for proposals for a government health insurance program, Gov. Eloy S. Inos said that extending the contract with current provider Aetna International by up to 60 days could mean some $1.2 million in added cost to the government due to the 40-percent premium increase.<\/p>\n
He said the government will issue a new RFP, depending on the work of a committee comprised of personnel from the Office of the Attorney General, NMI Retirement Fund, Department of Finance, and the office of the Insurance Commissioner\/Department of Commerce.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis last RFP gave us a lot of insights just because of the premium costs\u2014it\u2019s skyrocketing. With limited providers, limited services, higher deductibles and higher co-pays, we have to come up with a proper mix to make sure it\u2019s affordable to the members. As you know, the government is picking up about 50 percent of the premium. So it\u2019s going to be a drain on the general fund as well,\u201d he said in an interview at the signing of a proclamation declaring January 2014 Cervical Cancer Awareness Month on Friday.<\/p>\n
The governor said the 40-percent premium increase could be manageable if the total cost is managed correctly.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, you eliminate some of the services to be covered, then the impact of the 40 percent won\u2019t be as great but if we maintain the same level of service then\u2026 Right now it\u2019s costing the whole program, about $19 million\/$18 million a year\u2014half of that is shouldered by the government. You do the math, 40 percent increase, you can see how much that\u2019s going to cost in annual additional premium,\u201d Inos added.<\/p>\n
In the new RFP, the government would want the \u201cwidest coverage\u201d available in the United States, for example.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ask them to give us options and so forth. We need to give them ideas to the membership, which one comprised retirees and active, given that retirees cost more to insure,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The additional cost to the government as a result of the health insurance premium hike, along with the $5 million that the government has to come up with to add to the $20 million it already budgeted for in fiscal year 2014 to remit to the Retirement Settlement Fund, means more revenue-generating measures and cost-cutting for the government.<\/p>\n
But Inos said work hour cuts \u201cwill always be the last resort\u201d as far as additional cost-cutting measures are concerned.<\/p>\n
The governor said once the video lottery and electronic gaming projects are rolled out, then the government could expect new revenues that would help cover the budget shortfall for both the Retirement Settlement Fund and health insurance costs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only thing right now that we need funded is the $5 million increase in required amount to make the minimum guaranteed payment for the Retirement and $7 million, now probably $9 million, in additional health insurance premium,\u201d Inos added.<\/p>\n
Besides the video lottery and electronic gaming bills that are now laws, there are still pending revenue-generating bills that could help the CNMI, including amendments to the Sales Receipts Act. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A week after canceling a request for proposals for a government health insurance program, Gov. Eloy S. Inos said that extending the contract with current provider Aetna International by up to 60 days could mean some $1.2 million in added cost to the government due to the 40-percent premium increase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174899\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}