There is a need to control health plan costs

To the Editor: After reading your recent article, “Questions about council’s health coverage arise,” in the June 22 edition of The Township Journal, it is clear that certain laws require municipalities to offer health benefits to all full-time employees and elected officials. It is also clear that health benefit costs are skyrocketing. What is not clear is why any municipality would choose the state health plan over other more competitively priced plans. Is utilization of the state plan also mandated by law? During my tenure on the Stanhope School board of education, the board researched various privately offered health benefits plans and compared the findings to the state health plan in an effort to identify similar coverages at more reasonable prices. The board and the Stanhope Education Association were, then, able to negotiate a change in plan and this negotiation resulted in considerable savings to the school district (read: property tax payers). If there are no legal requirements to remain in the state health plan, such an approach as was used by the school district may work for the borough. The governing body is encouraged to pursue these and other measures of economy so that adherence to the law is balanced with the need to control health plan costs. Michele Rhodes-Simpson Stanhope