Things I know— see —- and think about PEIA. My apologies for stealingthe late Hugh C. Tate’s occasional column in which he noted his observations coupled with what he saw and then drew a conclusion. It was succinct, often sarcastic, but always on target and I miss both him and the column.
I am a former employee of the State of West Virginia. For eight years I was the Community Relations Coordinator at West Virginia Northern Community College. Political seeds were germinating even then, because I got myself elected to represent classified employees to the Board of Regents and found myself besieged with problems with PEIA. Arch Moore was Governor and he was playing fast and loose with PEIA funds. Not only hospitals but doctors couldn’t get paid and if they did they were 90 days out. The result was doctors were telling long time patients that they could no longer treat them cause they couldn’t get paid. Even more tragic is one case of an employee who discovered she had breast cancer but was turned down repeatedly by doctors who had made it a policy not to accept PEIA patients. Pharmacists had an even greater dilemma. There providers weren’t willing to wait 90 days for payment, but the State wasn’t paying any sooner, so they too were turning away patients.
From there I transitioned tinto the Legislature only to be be put on a PEIA Select Committee which included shoring up the fund financially, but also increasing co-pays and premiums for State employees. One of the major problems was that during lean years employees had been told they there was no money for raises, but they would touch PEIA. Remember, the teachers strike of 1990 wasn’t just about raises,. It was about PEIA and broken promises.
And, now what do I SEE. Wheeling Hospital (now part of WVU… pounding their chest and setting a deadline of July for raise their reimbursement rate.) The Legislative session will begin Wednesday and those that know indicate a bill to rectify many problems will also make it debut. Each health care provider negotiates it own reimbursement rate based on a number of factors. Since WVU is looking to be the big guns in West Virginia I would look to put together a team to negotiate a team to arrive at a rate . One suggestion has been 100.5 percent of the Federal Medicare rate.
Does PEIA need shored up financially? Of course. And, here we sit with the largest budget surplus in West Virginia’s history. Just do it! It’s morally the right thing to do. And do it early in the session, so the issue doesn’t detract from other pressing issues.
We have several articles on the quality of eductors and our inability to attact quality educators. Fixing PEIA is a first step to doing so.
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