Lawrence school board OKs new insurance plan

The Lawrence school board Monday voted to pull the plug on its beleaguered self-funded health insurance program and to affiliate with Coventry Health Care of Bethesda, Md.

A move to Coventry won’t prevent cost increases in providing health care for the 2,500 people in the district’s benefit group.

“It’s a mission impossible in the current market,” said board President Sue Morgan, who helped form a 5-0 majority in favor of Coventry.

But, in the short term, premiums paid by the district for 1,150 individual policies and premiums paid jointly by the district and its employees for 400 family policies won’t increase as rapidly as if the district had retained the self-insured program managed by Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

The district operated the self-insurance pool since 1981. In recent years, the board tried to shield employees from huge rate increases by tapping the reserve fund. The reserve account balance is now unacceptably low.

“We’re going to have to leave self insurance,” said Scott Morgan, the board’s vice president. “That’s a decision forced on us by previous decisions, which made sense at the time.”

Under the deal with Coventry, the district will continue to pay the premium on an individual policy. Family plans next year will be subsidized by remnants of the self-insurance pool.

One drawback with Coventry is that the company’s physician network isn’t as large as that maintained by BCBS.

Board members Mary Loveland and Linda Robinson, both of whom are married to Lawrence physicians, did not vote on the issue.

The plan must still be adopted by certified educators in a vote coordinated by Lawrence Education Assn., a union representing teachers.