Benefit Inequities
Jul. 15th, 2005 10:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lurkittyThe Public Employee Benefits Board, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that three counties in Oregon are different from all the other counties. State employees in Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties will not have access to Blue Cross/Blue Shield health plan. Instead, those in Linn and Benton counties may choose from the as yet unwritten Samaritan Health Plan or drive to Salem or Portland to access Kaiser. Lincoln county residents will only have Samaritan.
Now, what's wrong with this picture? First, though the PEBB's vision statement says their transactions are supposed to be "transparent" -- no advance notice was given that this change was being contemplated and no comment was solicited from affected employees. The first notice anyone had of the action was after the contracts had been signed. But it gets worse.
Samaritan Health Plan owns Good Samaritan Hospital and its share of physicians offices in the three counties. Corvallis Clinic is a major rival. When Samaritan first went to Corvallis Clinic and asked them to join them in this proposal, the Clinic not only said no, they said, "Hell No!" But when the contracts came out, the Clinic was on the list as covered by the plan! When the Clinic called Samaritan to protest, Samaritan threatened to tie them up with a lawsuit.
Does anyone else find it odd that our State Senator, Frank Morse, is Chairman of the Samaritan Health Board?
I don't wonder that OSU has reported record numbers of emails among faculty and staff this week.
Now, what's wrong with this picture? First, though the PEBB's vision statement says their transactions are supposed to be "transparent" -- no advance notice was given that this change was being contemplated and no comment was solicited from affected employees. The first notice anyone had of the action was after the contracts had been signed. But it gets worse.
Samaritan Health Plan owns Good Samaritan Hospital and its share of physicians offices in the three counties. Corvallis Clinic is a major rival. When Samaritan first went to Corvallis Clinic and asked them to join them in this proposal, the Clinic not only said no, they said, "Hell No!" But when the contracts came out, the Clinic was on the list as covered by the plan! When the Clinic called Samaritan to protest, Samaritan threatened to tie them up with a lawsuit.
Does anyone else find it odd that our State Senator, Frank Morse, is Chairman of the Samaritan Health Board?
I don't wonder that OSU has reported record numbers of emails among faculty and staff this week.
