The AP/Las Vegas Sun on Tuesday examined at least six states considering health insurance pooling plans for school districts as a way of holding down increasing health care costs. Supporters of insurance pools "see it as a way for states to free up money for books and teachers' salaries in their school districts," which are "hurting for revenues and pressed" by health care costs, according to the AP/Sun. Advocates also "say it makes little sense for school systems to negotiate health plans individually," the AP/Sun reports. According to Michigan Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Shirley Johnson (R), the goal of using pools is to "spend less on the cost of education and more on educating children." Studies of health insurance pools have found that such plans could save Oregon's 198 districts and community colleges $50 million annually. A Pennsylvania study found that the state could have saved $585 million in 2003 if a pool had been established. However, pools are opposed by some teachers' unions and districts "with generous benefits" who say "a state-run bureaucracy can diminish benefits and strip them of collective bargaining rights," the AP/Sun reports (Welsh-Huggins, AP/Las Vegas Sun, 5/3).

AP/Las Vegas Sun

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