AAEA Members,

An email from the MEA mothership (lobbyist Dave Stafford) follows. It contains the details of legislative action that is about to be taken against MESSA and state regs regarding our health care. Please go back to the AAPS email you received notifying you of this, click the handy link, and take action. It only takes a few minutes. Your health care is worth it. So is mine. THANKS!

Brit Satchwell (AAEA PacMan)

Stafford’s email:

We have received credible information that, immediately after the Thanksgiving Break, outgoing House Speaker Craig DeRoche intends to take up the package of bills that attack MESSA and the way in which we bargain our benefits. The bills are SB 895, SB 896, SB 897 and SB 898. This package was passed by the Senate on December 1, 2005 and sent to the House of Representatives. On December 7, 2005 the House Education Committee reported the bills out to the House and they were placed on the House Calendar for action by the full House. They have been sitting on the House Calendar awaiting action ever since that date, and they can be taken up whenever the Speaker so chooses.

We have been able to stop these attacks in the past by working with all of the Democrats and a number of friendly Republicans. The problem we face with this package of bills is that they are the result of efforts by the Michigan Federation of Teachers, acting with a coalition of school management groups and Senator Shirley Johnson (in fact, some in the Capitol refer to this package as the "MFT Bills"). The MFT involvement means that we must work harder to hold all of our friends since some of them are also friends of the Federation.

The Legislature is gone for its Thanksgiving recess and will be back on Tuesday, November 28th for a 2 or 3 week "lame duck" session. The information we've received is that the Speaker intends to take up the bills on the first day back, November 28th, which means that we will not have much time after the holidays. We need your help to defeat this effort. PLEASE:

1. Contact your representative and urge her/him to oppose the effort to pass this legislation in lame duck session. (Brit’s note: The AAPS email I sent you has the easy link for this!)
2. Organize as many of your members as possible to do the same.

Attached is a summary of the legislation and talking points on why we oppose the bills.You can use this information to guide your discussion with your representative(s). The major problems are:

1. It requires that insurers in the school market provide detailed claims data by school district which would undermine the tested, effective business model of MESSA.
2. It allows school districts to join together to form self-insurance pools with no oversight or requirement that they be funded and managed properly. Current law allows districts to join together and form self insurance pools but they must do so under the terms of the state insurance code and with oversight from the insurance commissioner.
3. It calls for the state to establish a stop loss fund for large claims, to be patterned after the Catastrophic Claims Fund that the state operates for large automobile insurance claims. The current Catastrophic Claims Fund has been a horribly expense endeavor that has ever increasing costs associated with it. It is a classic example of what happens when government tries to operate a business and we believe that the same thing would happen to school employee health costs if the state takes over the function that is currently being operated by the private sector.

Your help is extremely important. Please act in the next week. If you have questions, please feel free to contact me.

Dave Stafford, Lobbyist
Michigan Education Association
1216 Kendale Boulevard
East Lansing, Michigan 48826

dstafford@mea.org
517/332-6551, Ext. 5439