Sims names members to health-cost panel

By Keith Ervin
Seattle Times staff reporter

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With employee health-care costs projected to double over the next five years, King County Executive Ron Sims yesterday named members of an advisory task force to find ways to control medical spending.

Health-care costs are expected to rise by at least 15 percent a year in the next five years, Sims said, pushing the county's spending on employee health care from $124 million this year to $249 million in 2008.

Fast-rising health-care costs are among the factors that have forced the county to make $100 million in cuts from its general fund in the past three years.

"I refuse to accept the proposition that the only answer to ensuring affordable, quality health care is to decide who pays more, the employees or the employer," Sims said.

Some Metropolitan King County Council members have questioned whether the county can continue to pay the full cost of increasingly expensive health-care premiums for employees. A joint labor-management group next year will negotiate a health plan to go into effect in 2006.

Sims has met once with members of the Health Care Advisory Task Force, which will seek innovative ways to meet workers' health needs and control county costs. Committee members include physicians, corporate-benefits managers and other health-care experts.

This is the third independent task force Sims has appointed since last year to study difficult issues. A parks task force last year recommended divestiture of the county's parks and pools in suburban cities, and a budget panel this year called for annexation of unincorporated urban areas to adjacent cities.

Another task force is studying the funding of human services.

Members of the health-care task force include Summex Chairman Larry Chapman, Washington Mutual Benefits Manager Michael Cochran, physician David Fleming of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Inland Northwest Health Services Chief Executive Tom Fritz, Joint Council of Teamsters President Al Hobart, Starbucks Benefits and Savings Director Annette King, Harborview Medical Center Associate Medical Director Dan Lessler, and Children's Hospital & Regional Medical Center Associate General Counsel Jodi Palmer Long.

Other members are Richard Onizuka, director of policy, data and legislative relations for the state Health Care Authority; Charles Royer, of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; ophthalmologist David Saperstein; University of Washington pharmacy professor Andy Stergachis; UW School of Medicine professor Mike Stuart; Costco Assistant Vice President Jay Tihinen; Ed Wagner, director of the MacColl Institute for Health Care Innovation; UW nursing professor Debbie Ward; UW health-services professor Cindy Watts; and Microsoft Senior Benefits Manager Ana White.

A representative of the city of Seattle will be appointed to the task force.

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com

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