The state Board of Regents approved a two-year pilot program last week that will grant free health insurance to the children of employees who earn less than $25,000 a year. The new program will cost $370,000 a year, which will be paid for by revenues from the university system's self-funded health insurance plan.
"We believe all Montanans who work hard should have a living wage and affordable health insurance," state Commissioner of Higher Education Sheila Stearns said Monday.
"The problem the university system faces, especially in Bozeman and Missoula, for the lowest-paid university employees is that the high cost of living is a tremendous burden to them," Mercer said. "They're having to work multiple jobs and these kinds of things."
Up to 400 people are expected to sign up for the program during open enrollment this spring, said Glen Leavitt, director of benefits for the Montana university system. He said 85 percent of those participants are currently paying for health insurance for their children, while the remaining 15 percent of participants are expected to put their children on the plan for the first time.
Leavitt said the new program will save families somewhere between $59 and $110 a month.
To be eligible for the pilot program, employees must work at least half time and must make less than $25,000 a year. Eligible employees will be able to enroll their children in the pilot program this May, and the benefits would kick in July 1.
Mercer came up with the idea several years ago and university officials have been fine-tuning the measure ever since. Mercer said the regents were looking for ways to improve employees' complete compensation packages.
"I'm very much in favor of it," Stearns said. "I'm glad they found a way to help our lowest-paid employees."
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