WHEN LOCAL 307-CO and members of the Clark County Labor Coalition bargained a health-care committee into existence in 2001, the former County Human Resources Director issued a challenge.

The committee would never be able to do better than he had done on health care costs, he declared.

Today, the group indeed has done better. It has been able to control costs and prevent employees paying health-insurance premiums for themselves or their dependents every year since then.

So successful has the committee been that members of the coalition have been asked twice to deliver presentations on what they have achieved. Bill McEntire, who is on the Council 2 Executive Board, outlined their accomplishments to Oregon’s Collective Bargaining Conference last year. And Donna Goddard, a Local 307-CO member, will discuss them when she participates in a group presentation at the 28th Annual Collective Bargaining Conference in Seattle on March 9 and 10.

The committee is just one example of ways in which Council 2 is exploring innovative ways of addressing overall health issues and thereby reducing members’ costs.

After all, health care costs are often the most hotly contested issues in bargaining sessions and sometimes cutting health care costs and preventing costs from rising are regarded as more important than wage issues.

As part of its effort, Council 2 is participating in a joint labor-management health insurance committee that negotiates benefits for all King County employees. As one of eight labor representatives, Research Director Bill Dennis is playing a key role for Council 2 on the committee, which also includes four management representatives.

“We are working toward providing wellness and other creative programs that will make King County employees healthier and thereby reduce costs,” Dennis says.

Clearly healthier workers mean fewer doctors’ visits, less medication and therefore lower overall medical costs.

The committee has bargained four new programs in addition to regular benefits. These are being put into operation immediately and are likely to be included in the contracts with the unions for 2006 and 2007.

The programs are:

• A disease management program — which includes chronic heart disease, diabetes and asthma — that aims at monitoring patients and making doctors aware if a patient is receiving a variety of medication from different doctors that might be contra-indicated.

“It is a system to give better care and close loopholes that might be out there,” Kathi Oglesby, labor liaison for King County Executive Ron Sims says.

• A 24-hour nurse hotline. Officials hope the availability of this line will cut down on Emergency Room visits.

• A “whole wellness” program aimed at taking into account the physical aspects of work, such as accessible stairways, ergonomic work spaces and the availability of fresh drinking water.

• A monthly newsletter called “Health Matters” that will be mailed to employees’ homes and will be filled with health tips and recipes.

“We have taken a different tack than most employers,” Oglesby adds. “And we are doing this in partnership with the unions.
“We believe we will cut costs by making people healthier.”

A study by Johnson & Johnson indicated how health and wellness programs can cut health-care costs. The results are shown in the table below.

Another effort being promoted by Sims is the Puget Sound Health Alliance, which consists largely of companies in the private sector and other public employers in the region such as Snohomish and Pierce counties and the City of Seattle. Union trusts are expected to become involved later.

Sims says the county’s health-care costs are increasing by 15 percent a year and that unless something changes the bill for 39,000 county employees and dependents will reach an unaffordable $249 million in 2008.

By forming a regional coalition, the alliance hopes to establish standards of care and accountability for the Puget Sound area that will eventually influence the health care market and result in lower insurance premium costs.

Council 2 and others involved are hoping that their efforts will mean rising health-care costs can be kept under control — and possibly even reversed — for its members.