PBPA to roll out health insurance plan in Odessa, Midland

The Permian Basin Petroleum Association and Odessa Chamber of Commerce will introduce its Permian Basin Employer Group Health Plan with meetings in Odessa and Midland on Tuesday.

Midland Chamber looking into its own insurance plan.

The Permian Basin Petroleum Association and Odessa Chamber of Commerce will introduce its Permian Basin Employer Group Health Plan with meetings in Odessa and Midland on Tuesday.

There will be a breakfast event in Odessa’s MCM Eleganté at 7:30 a.m., followed by an unveiling in Midland at the Petroleum Club at 1:30 p.m.

“We invite employers, insurance agents and employers with their insurance agents to come learn about the program, its costs and benefits,” said Kirk Edwards, president of the PBPA. “We want to educate them about what this is and how good it will be for health care in the Permian Basin.”

To participate, employers must enroll at least two people in the plan and be members of the Odessa Chamber or the PBPA. But, as Edwards pointed out, “anyone can be a member of the PBPA. Our saying is, ‘If you’re in business in the Permian Basin, you’re in the oil business.’”

The PBPA and Odessa Chamber have partnered with Alliance Hospital in Odessa and Midland Memorial Hospital to provide care under the plan, Edwards said.

“Having the two hospitals on board will help them cut down on indigent care costs” because more patients will have insurance, he said.

There are two different plans under the program, one for employers who employ up to 50 and another for employers with more than 50 employees. Employers taking part in the program will do so through their existing insurance agents. “The PBPA won’t be in the insurance business,” Edwards said.

In developing the plan, he said the two groups modeled their efforts on a similar plan launched last year by the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce.

“We learned from the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce about their successful plan, which has over 7,500 lives enrolled. Their statistics show that more than 22 percent of the people in the plan had had no benefits before. They created a system that let more people get insurance at a time costs are going up,” he said.

The efforts, he noted, come after a previous session of the Texas Legislature passed a law allowing associations like the PBPA to amalgamate lives to form such plans, with the goal of reducing insurance costs and increasing coverage.

“This is what they hoped would happen,” he said. “If a business with five employees looks at insurance, the costs are going to be high. But we’re amalgamating many employers.”

The goal is to start with 2,000 lives, Edwards said, with the ultimate goal of enrolling at least as many as the Lubbock program.

He added the program also will be available to outlying towns like Big Spring, Stanton or Lamesa, for employers who are members of their local chambers of commerce.

The Midland Chamber of Commerce is looking to participate in an affordable health insurance plan of its own, chamber officials said last week, including one proposed by the University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston, known as the 3-Share plan. Under this plan, insurance costs would be divided among the employer, employee and government funds.

Source : www.mywesttexas.com