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Monday, January 23, 2006

Ind. Law - More on legislators' health care - voting records and questions re state employees' benefits

This is Part I of the two entries I hope to get posted today on the "legislative health care for life" issue. In this entry you will find: (1) an analysis of the voting records on the bills that made up the "package." (2) Questions I have sent to the State Department of Personnel to confirm my understanding of the health benefits available to non-legislative-branch state employees.

Part II will discuss what people knew at the time, and address the question of who are the retired legislators collecting the benefits.

Roll call votes. As discussed in this ILB entry from 1/6/06, the General Assembly passed four bills, in 2001 and 2002, to institute their health-care-for-life benefits. Here is information on each bill:

• House Enrolled Act 1667

  • HEA 1667, passed in 2001, puts the plan in place, offering subsidized health insurance to ex-lawmakers, ex-lawmakers' spouses and ex-spouses, spouses of deceased legislators, their children, retired staffers and their families.

  • HB 1667, as introduced, was an insurance technical corrections bill. (Here is the Action List on HB 1667-2001.)

  • It was stripped in the House and what is basically its current content was substituted. It passed 3rd reading in the House 92-5 (Roll Call).

  • When it went over to the Senate, Senator Garton assigned it to the Rules Committee. It passed out of Rules with one minor change, on a 7-0 vote, and passed the Senate with no further amendments, 49-0 (Roll Call).

  • The House concurred in the Senate amendments 79-10 (Roll Call). It was signed by Gov. O'Bannon.

• House Enrolled Act 1193
  • SECTION 6 of HEA 1193 (2001) prohibits the House speaker, Senate president pro tempore and Legislative Council from revoking post-retirement insurance coverage, once offered. A vote of the entire General Assembly is required to revoke it.

  • This provision was not in the bill as introduced, a bill about employee benefits.

    Here is the Action List on HB 1193-2001.

  • The provision was inserted at the end of the process, after the bill had passed both houses, by the Conference Committee. The conferees were Reps. Kromkowski and Buell, and Senators Harrison and Craycroft.

  • The Conference Committee report was adopted in the House 96-2 (Roll Call) and in the Senate 48-0.

• House Enrolled Act 1196
  • A brief provision (SECTION 141 on p. 153) in House Enrolled Act 1196, a massive tax bill passed in 2002, gave the House speaker, Senate president pro tempore and Legislative Council power to tap a special fund to pay for retired lawmakers' and retired legislative aides' health benefits.

    Here is the link to the introduced bill. Here is the Action List on HB 1193-2001.

  • The language that ended up as SECTION 141 was not in the bill until it was added in Conference Committee. The conferees were: Reps. Bauer and Espich, Senators Borst and Simpson.

  • The Conference Committee report was adopted in the House 87-7 (Roll Call) and in the Senate 49-0.

• Senate Enrolled Act 506
  • SEA 506 would have created the special fund referenced in HEA 1196 (above), without stating its true purpose, but Gov. Frank O'Bannon vetoed it. The next day, a veto override attempt failed 26-25 in the Indiana Senate, with Lt. Gov. Joe Kernan casting the deciding vote. The fund has not been created. (See SECTION 1 - This would have created a non-reverting fund, to which "unused appropriations" were to be transferred, to be used to pay for retired lawmakers' and retired legislative aides' health benefits.)

  • This provision was not in the bill as introduced and as it passed the Senate. The bill was about electronic distribution of legislative documents. See introduced bill here.

  • Here is the Action List on SB 506-2002.

  • The language at issue was added in the House Public Policy Committee, as SECTION 1. The bill passed the House 82-13 (Roll Call) .

  • The Senate did not concur in the House amendment. The bill went to conference committee. Conferees were Senators Ford and Alexa; Reps. Dobis and Murphy.

  • The Conference Committee report was adopted in the House 77-13 (Roll Call) and in the Senate 49-1 (Roll Call) .

  • Governor O'Bannon vetoed SEA 506, naming the special fund as the reason. (Access the veto message in this ILB entry.)

  • On May 14, 2002, the Senate voted on the veto override. Gov. O'Bannon's veto was sustained, but not until Lt. Gov. Kernan voted NAY to break the 25-25 tie. Here is the Roll Call. (If a veto override does not prevail in the house of origin, the bill is dead - a vote in the 2nd house would be meaningless.)

Questions sent to State Personnel. Here are the questions I emailed to the counsel at State Personnel yesterday afternoon.

1. Do retired state employees on Medicare have any state-sponsored supplemental health benefits? I know that there is a group plan via RIPEA, but that is a group plan that members of RIPEA may join to get the benefit of group rates - the State pays nothing into it.

2. Are retired state employees who are not yet on Medicare -- i.e. who take early retirement -- eligible for any health care insurance benefits from the State? My understanding is that they may elect to receive COBRA for 18 months, if they pay both parts, but that is it.

3. There is some confusing language in HEA 1667 that passed in 2001 -- it seems to provide some health benefits for state employees (other than legislators and some law enforcement personnel), but my understanding is that these have never been funded or implemented because of the costs involved. Is that correct?

[For earlier related ILB entries, select "Legislative Benefits" from the list of categories in the right column, or by selecting "Legislative Benefits" in the line directly below this entry.]

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 23, 2006 01:19 PM
Posted to Indiana Government | Indiana Law | Legislative Benefits