The new premium rates for a Government of Guam health care self-insurance program were released today, this as senators began deliberations on a bill to delay the launch date to at least Dec. 31.

During the discussion, longtime Department of Administration health insurance negotiating team member Leonora Candaso was asked about the impact of a delay just one month before the new coverage for thousands of GovGuam employees is supposed to begin.

"If we were to roll over, each carrier will have to go in and talk to their consultants and readjust and look at the claims and they're going to have to forecast again and so that's a whole new set of discussions again that they need to go back and have their experts crunch those numbers," she said. "And that's something that basically just through the negotiations not something you can do quickly noting that October 1st is really around the corner and the last thing we want to do is send someone on 10/1 and tell them hang on we're still trying to figure out are we rolling over or are we going forward with what we already negotiated."

The administration has said the law authorizing GovGuam to self-insurance employee health care has been on the books for more than a decade.

The GovGuam negotiating team decided earlier this year that self-insurance is needed due to ever-rising costs.

An actuarial report indicates an average increase of 15 percent.

DOA Director Edward Birn explains that one of the deciding factors is the high usage by retirees, which skews the costs charged by private insurers.

"So they price that in," he said. "Even though for the government as a whole the risk is the same. To them there's an acute risk, to us there's a serious risk. So by having a self-insured policy we're taking that risk pricing out of the cost of the insurance and that's one of the big advantages of a self-insured plan."

Minority leader Frank Blas Jr. Has been pushing for the delay saying not enough information is out, and he doesn't believe the administration is fully prepared.

The discussions continued late this afternoon, and we'll have a complete update tomorrow.

As mentioned DOA has begun circulating the schedule of insurance premium prices to GovGuam agencies ahead of planned open enrollment.

See the information on the GovGuam Health Self-Insurance plan here: