However, at least two councilmen are asking for patience until the matter is resolved.
Councilmen Otis Evans and Scott Cosper both said any mention of a lawsuit against Scott & White Health Plan would be premature.
Evans said there has been no mention of any possible litigation against Scott & White Health Plan, and that the council’s only concern was taking care of city employees.
“We’ve got to do the best we can,” Evans said. “The bottom line is that the council is committed to doing what is necessary to keep continuous health care for our city employees.”
City leaders learned of a potential 11 percent increase from City Attorney Kathy Davis, who addressed the council and said the health care plan had guaranteed its insurance rate offer to the city, but failed to live up to its legal obligation.
“They solicited us to be our sole source health care provider last year,” Cosper said. “This was supposed to be a three-year optional deal.”
Cosper said when the deal they had with the health plan provider expired, they were presented with a far less favorable alternative, one that provided less benefits to the consumer, but cost more.
“Our attorney and Scott & White’s agent both said we were supposed to have a deal and they pulled the deal on us,” Cosper said.
When that was revealed, Cosper said there was a lot of dialog going on, including his comment that he would refrain from commenting until after the closed session “because this could be litigated.”
“I never said it would be, should be or nothing else,” Cosper said. “But there is a very clear disagreement about what the deal was last year . . . ”
Allan Einboden, executive manager for the Scott & White Health Plan, disagreed there was a rate dispute with the city of Killeen at all and issued a statement to that affect Thursday afternoon.
“What was not reflected in the coverage of the city council meeting is that the city of Killeen has already signed a rate proposal which details the conditions under which premium rates would increase,” Einboden said. “That agreement makes clear that rates are based on consumer utilization. The data used in determining the increase is factual, verifiable and according to industry standard practices. The Scott & White Health Plan has no dispute with what the city has agreed to in writing. It is unfortunate that a misunderstanding has occurred, but we want to assure both officials and readers that we will honor the arrangement signed by the city.”
Lee B. Green, Scott & White Health Plan’s associate executive director of sales and marketing, spoke to the council and indicated the 11 percent increase was still much lower than if the city bid the service out.
Regardless, Evans said the increase is a hard pill to swallow.
“You’ve got to know that we are having heartburn over this,” he said. “We don’t want to unnecessarily burden the citizens with tax increases, nor do we want to pass cost along to our employees.”
Meanwhile, Einboden said the health care provider is eager to work with the city of Killeen to achieve a viable solution - to maintain their relationship.
“We have valued our partnership with the city, which has been uninterrupted for the past 22 years, and have demonstrated that partnership by not attempting to recoup past losses,” Einboden said in the statement. “We recognize that these are financially challenging times and, in the spirit of partnership, we welcome the opportunity to work with the city in identifying appropriate ways to support their cost containment efforts.”
