EDITORIAL: A big splash in the insurance pool

Officials in Lake and Porter counties are looking at the cost of health insurance and trying to figure out how to solve the looming problems. A mirror might help, but it isn't the only answer.

Lake County Councilman Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, warned last month that the county's insurance reserve could dry up by 2013 if the county fails to deal with the problem.

In Porter County, officials increasingly are concerned about the cost of health and life insurance, which rose from $7.5 million in 2010 to $9.3 million last year.

Possible solutions include either raising taxes or fees, raising premiums for those who are insured, reducing coverage or no longer providing coverage to some people — or, more likely, implementing more than one of these ideas.

In Lake County, some public defenders could get kicked out of the health insurance pool. Chief public defender David Schneider opposes this idea, of course.

"We would be losing veteran attorneys," Schneider said. "The ones hurt in the end are the clients."

The two Republicans on the Lake County Council propose eliminating insurance benefits for about 25 public defenders not in the felony division — a savings of about $380,000 a year in premiums. The state pays about 40 percent of the cost of public defenders in the felony division.

Complicating the discussion in Porter County is that half of the County Council members and commissioners receive insurance benefits, as well as 13 of the county's 15 public defenders and 20 of their dependents.

Porter County chief public defender Ken Elwood said 40 to 50 percent of his staff works at or near full-time capacity. It would cost more to use only full-time employees to provide this service, Elwood said.

However, insurance, like paid vacation days and other benefits, is part of an overall compensation package. It should be primarily for full-timers, not part-time employees. If insurance is to be offered to part-timers, they should either have to pay a much larger share of their premium or face benefits reduced in proportion to their hours worked.

Further, insurance shouldn't be offered to elected officials. Getting insurance coverage shouldn't be their motivation for running for office.

Only by taking actions like these will the health insurance costs in both counties slow their rate of increase and prevent the insurance pool from running dry.