Caregivers say county plans would cut health insurance

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | Tuesday, October 24, 2006 9:41 PM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO -- Dozens of "in-home support" workers who help make sure that seriously ill, disabled, frail and elderly persons can stay in their homes rather than be sent to institutions showed up at county chambers Tuesday to complain bitterly that the county is threatening to cut their health insurance.

County Chief Administrative Officer Walt Ekard, meanwhile, said supervisors had gone out of their way to try to help the workers, but that the national and state "crisis" of rising health insurance costs was not something the county could control.

Earlier this week, the United Domestic Workers of America filed unfair labor practice charges against the county with the Public Employment Relations Board, alleging that county plans would mean 3,000 in-home support workers who earn no more than $9.25 an hour would lose their health insurance coverage by the end of October.

County officials have denied that charge.

Carlos Arauz, San Diego County's director of human resources, said the unhappiness had been created by forces outside of the county's control ---- increasing costs for the workers' health insurance coverage.

Arauz said the workers were in the second year of a three-year contract they negotiated with the county that runs through Jan. 12, 2008. Arauz said the problem is that a separate contract the county had with Sharp Healthcare to provide health insurance coverage had expired. Arauz said that under the workers' current contract, the county gives each worker $215 a month to help pay for their health care coverage.

That system was working until the Sharp contract expired and the county sought bids for a new contract, Arauz said. Only one bid came in, and it was much more expensive, he said.

Now, union officials and the workers say they would have to spend much more per month ---- money they cannot afford to pay ---- to bridge the gap between the county's $215 per month allowance and the premiums of the proposed health insurance coverage.

Al Arrington, an in-home support service worker, pleaded with supervisors to intervene at Tuesday's meeting. Because the issue was not on the board's agenda, workers made their comments during the public comment period ---- which is reserved for issues and comments not on the docket and to which supervisors normally do not respond.

"We only make $9 an hour," Arrington said. "We cannot afford a 100 percent, 200 percent, 300 percent increase in our insurance premiums. Please, we beg you to consider maintaining our health insurance as it is, at the cost it is."

Doug Moore, a deputy administrator for the union, said the union had proposed several options, including a possible county contract with Kaiser Permanente. Moore said the Kaiser option would keep the workers insured with no added cost to the county.

"But all we get back from the county negotiators are bureaucracy and red tape and a million excuses why the county won't agree," Moore said.

Ekard, meanwhile, ignored the county's regular policy of not addressing public comments to challenge Moore.

He said the union's plan would cost the county more. And, Ekard added, county supervisors had decided to try to help the workers by increasing the county's $215 a month health insurance stipend by 10 percent ---- even though the workers' current contract was good through Jan. 12, 2008, and the board had no legal requirement to increase the insurance stipend.

He also said that the money the state, which pays for the bulk of the program, gives the county "is not enough." Ekard said the county would have to take money from other worthy programs to increase funding for the in-home support program.

Ekard suggested the union could help out by diverting some of the dues that its members pay to increasing the workers' monthly health insurance stipend.

"The cost of health care is skyrocketing, and health plans, per se, are less and less affordable," Ekard said. "It's a state and national crisis. Unfortunately, it's not a crisis that the county of San Diego, or any other county, is going to be able to fix."

Ekard said he understood workers unwillingness to pay more for health insurance, and said county officials would continue to work with the union on their behalf.

Meanwhile, Supervisor Dianne Jacob said the county, the union and the workers should press state lawmakers to come up with more money.

"This, ultimately, is the solution," Jacob said. "It's the state, again, that has the responsibility."

-- Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.

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