Lifetime lawmaker health insurance to end — in future

Any lawmaker who serves one term in the Tennessee General Assembly — two years in the House or four years in the Senate — is eligible to remain on the state's health insurance plan for the rest of his or her life.

The plan lets them cover themselves, their spouses and eligible children. Eligible family members can stay on after the lawmaker dies.

Many current lawmakers are enrolled now — 116 out of 132 — and 148 former lawmakers remain on the state plan, according to records obtained by The Tennessean.

Many of those health insurance options are not available for the majority of state employees.

State workers must work 10 years to be eligible to keep their state insurance when they retire. Unless they continue to work past age 65, retirees must switch at 65 to a different, inferior coverage plan.

A new bill approved at the end of April will end the lifetime benefits for future lawmakers. The legislation also makes future state employees who leave their jobs ineligible for state-sponsored insurance until they are 65. Gov. Bill Haslam is expected to sign the legislation soon.

The sitting representatives and senators, and the 148 former lawmakers still enrolled in the state's insurance program, will be able to keep their lifetime benefits. Current state employees also are grandfathered in to their existing health plan.

Current state insurance benefits

There are 147,875 state employees and dependents covered by the state-funded health plan, said Joan Williams, spokeswoman for the state Benefits Administration. Those employees pay a 20 percent share of premiums for the health insurance. The state contributes 80 percent.

Those premiums go into a massive self-funded pool, in place in Tennessee since 1978, that covers the costs of health care. The total net amount for the state pool of premiums was nearly $190 million as of the end of June 2014, Williams said. When someone covered, including lawmakers, makes a legitimate claim, that claim will be paid for by money from this pool.

Health insurance plans in the private sector also tend to cover the majority of premiums for full-time employees, but the 80-20 split is one of the benefits that makes working in the public sector more attractive for many potential employees.

The state's contribution for a single state lawmaker ranged from just below $500 (for a partial year of coverage) to $5,932.32, according to state records. A Kaiser Family Foundation report found the average employer premium for a single employee in Tennessee was $3,979.

Those benefits aren't available to most part-time state employees. There are roughly 5,513 part-time state employees, but only 102 are enrolled in the state-sponsored health plan, according to information included in a state financial analysis — the fiscal note — of the proposed changes to the state employee health insurance law. The part-time exemption is for employees who've been employed for more than two years and work 1,450 hours a year.

That exemption is ending under the new law as well.

The Tennessee State Employees Association, the union for state workers, declined to comment for this story.

Changes in the future

Legislators approved the bill that ends health insurance benefits for future retired state employees, including lawmakers, who retire before they are 65 years old. The bill, which takes effect July 1, also nixes any insurance benefits currently available to state employees who work fewer than an average of 30 hours a week.

Haslam pushed the bill, and spokesman David Smith said the governor will sign the law.

"We had a good budget year this year, as far as revenue coming in. We believe it was a one-time burst of sunshine that we don't expect to occur next year," said House Majority Leader Gerald McCormick, R-Chattanooga, when describing the bill to fellow lawmakers.

"And what we've got to do is either come to the conclusion that we're going to have to have another significant tax increase to pay for these programs, or we're going to have to find where the big money is being spent, and insurance for employees is a big money item."

The cost savings of the change are unknown, although the fiscal note states there's a potential for $50,000 in "cost avoidance" for future part-time employees no longer eligible for the plan.

The plan has significant impact for a state employee who retires before the age of 65, noted Sen. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains.

"If we're going to have all of this heartache and heartburn over Insure Tennessee, why are we going to be kicking our state employees off?" Niceley said April 22, when the Senate discussed the bill.

"Theoretically, you could go to work at 20 years old, work 35 years, retire at 55, and you'd have from 55 to 65 with no insurance, until you got to Medicare."

But he also pointed to the effect the bill will have on lawmaker benefits as a reason to oppose the legislation.

"I just really don't know that we're doing the right thing by cutting the benefits on future legislators. It's not like we make a lot," Niceley said.

"That's just one more reason why you won't get good people in the legislature."

Lawmaker benefits

The vast majority of current state lawmakers are enrolled in the state's health insurance program. Public documents obtained by The Tennessean show the state has paid roughly $5.8 million on insurance premiums for 116 current lawmakers since 2008.

That amount doesn't include $1.4 million in premiums paid by lawmakers, but also probably doesn't come close to the actual cost of care the state provided to the lawmakers on the plan over that time period.

The state hasn't released the total amount it actually pays for lawmaker health care. State officials say that information is impossible to pull out of the entire state employee health insurance fund.

All of these current lawmakers will be eligible to stay on the state's health insurance plans once they retire or lose their seats, as long as they are not convicted of a felony.

Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, R-Blountville, recently announced lawmakers officially worked 28 days this year, and the constitution says they can't be paid for working more than 90 days during the two years of any given legislative session.

Most lawmakers also probably wouldn't meet the newly proposed 30-hour average workweek requirement to be eligible for the state insurance plan. An employee would need to work 1,560 hours a year to meet that average. If a lawmaker worked 10 hours a day, five days a week from the start of January to the end of April — the average length of a legislative session — they would still fall hundreds of hours short of the 1,560-hour requirement.

An official legislative day is only when the House and Senate meet in full session. Those 28 days don't include days when there are committee meetings but not a full session or days when lawmakers work with constituents outside of session.

But lawmakers don't need to meet that average weekly working requirement. State lawmakers wrote the law to officially include themselves in the definition of a "state employee." Public officials are actually listed in the definition before "any person who is employed in the service of ... the state."

Williams couldn't say how long lawmakers have been eligible for state employee insurance.

Retired lawmakers on the plan

Williams also couldn't say how long the lifetime lawmaker health insurance benefit has been in effect.

The 148 lawmakers not serving in the General Assembly but still receiving benefits include representatives and senators from a variety of regions and eras.

Some, such as former state Sen. Stacey Campfield, R-Knoxville, and former state Rep. Joe Carr, R-Lascassas, just left the legislature recently.

Others, like former state Sen. Ward Crutchfield, D-Chattanooga, and former state Sen. Roscoe Dixon, D-Memphis, are still eligible to receive benefits even though they were convicted of crimes in the "Tennessee Waltz" bribery scandal. When lawmakers passed a law banning felons from remaining on the plan, it grandfathered in those already enrolled in the insurance plan.

John Arriola, the former Democratic Davidson County clerk who resigned in 2012 after investigations showed he received more than $100,000 for performing marriage ceremonies, still receives health insurance through the state thanks to his days representing Nashville in the state House.

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, is still enrolled in the Tennessee state insurance plan. He served in the Tennessee Senate for 24 years before being elected to the U.S. Congress in 2006.

"While it is duplicitous for a lawmaker to accept taxpayer-funded coverage and then turn around and vote against providing coverage to the most vulnerable citizens of our state, the congressman is a co-founder of the Congressional State Medicaid Expansion caucus and has done everything he can to encourage the governor and state lawmakers to expand Medicaid coverage to almost 300,000 low-income citizens," said Ben Garmisa, a Cohen spokesman.

The state has not released how much it has paid in premiums or overall health costs for retired lawmakers still on the state insurance plan. The Tennessean continues to seek information about the total cost of lawmaker health care.

Reporter Holly Fletcher contributed to this report. Reach Dave Boucher at 615-259-8892 and on Twitter @Dave_Boucher1.

State insurance

State lawmakers

• Eligible to enroll in the state's health insurance plan

• Receive the same state contribution as state employees, 80 percent

• By law, cannot be in session for more than 90 days during a two-year term

• Eligible to remain on the state-sponsored plan when they leave the legislature, unless they are convicted of a felony.

State employees

• Must work 10 years to keep their state insurance when they retire.

• Can remain on the state-sponsored plan until age 65, at which point they move to another state plan and Medicare.

Retired lawmakers with state health insurance

After being elected and serving at least one term — two years in the House of Representatives and four years in the Senate — state lawmakers are eligible to stay on the state health insurance plan for life. Here's the list of the 148 lawmakers still receiving state health insurance benefits: