Candidate Constantine sees savings in worker health- plan switch

King County could save millions of dollars by offering employees an incentive to move to a less expensive health-care plan, county-executive candidate and County Councilmember Dow Constantine said Wednesday.

Raising the issue for the first time in the campaign, Constantine said in a news release that the KingCare health-plan costs the county $2,400 more annually for each of the 10,000 employees who choose it over Group Health Cooperative. About 2,000 workers are covered by Group Health.

If the county offered a $300 incentive for employees to shift to Group Health — and if 25 to 40 percent of workers accepted the offer — the county could save $5 million to $10 million next year, he said.

Constantine, who has strong labor-union support, has resisted calls from three candidates — state Rep. Ross Hunter, former TV newscaster Susan Hutchison and state Sen. Fred Jarrett — to ask unionized employees to share the cost of their health-care premiums.

County Councilmember Larry Phillips, also running for executive, says the county should discuss premium sharing at the bargaining table. But he and Constantine say it is better to reduce health-care costs than to push them onto employees.

Constantine has proposed that nonunion employees earning more than about $60,000 a year pay a portion of their premiums.

For union members, he said, "All these things are going to have to be negotiated, and it's going to be critical to have not just cooperation but the active participation of workers in making it work."

His proposed health-care incentive was part of a broader plan to fix a projected $56 million shortfall in the county's 2010 general fund.

While other candidates have made proposals for containing costs, Constantine's plan is the most detailed blueprint to date for balancing the 2010 budget.

Other elements of his plan, which he said could save $63.5 million to $75.5 million, would extend unpaid employee furloughs for another year and increase the period from 10 days to 12; use a mental-illness and drug-dependency sales tax for existing as well as new programs; cut costs through proposed annexations and a possible Fairwood incorporation; cut the County Council budget by 10 percent, the executive budget by 15 percent and other departments by 2 percent; reduce overhead charges to departments; and get the county out of the animal-shelter business.

He said his plan would allow 39 endangered urban parks to remain open. County Executive Kurt Triplett has said those parks would have to be closed to balance the budget.

Cynara Lilly, spokeswoman for Hunter, called Constantine's budget plan "a little bit like calling for shutting the barn door after the horses have gotten out. It's great that Dow is buckling down and has some ideas. A lot of these things are ideas Ross put out in his 16-page plan earlier in the campaign."

Jarrett called Constantine's proposed health-plan incentive "a timid step" and said, "This budget crisis is too serious for these kinds of political stunts."

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