Rep. Jim Bird is sponsoring HB24 - Health Insurance for School Districts. This bill is an example of a bill which pits two good principles against each other.
On the one hand it is commendable to require open market competition in purchasing health insurance for government entities. Substitute 1 of this bill would apply to charter schools and institutions of higher education.
On the other hand, the governing boards of each school district, charter school and institution of higher education are already highly motivated to obtain the best possible price for health insurance provided to their employees. This bill restricts the local control authority of the locally elected or appointed governing bodies who know the needs of their local constituents best.
There is an expense to school districts to prepare requests for proposals, but that is outweighed by the lower costs to government and to employees obtained through the competitive process. This law will ensure no government educational institutions get lazy and just keep the same health insurance providers when they might obtain a better price.
It is a tough call but I come down on the side of favoring the bill.
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