Unions Pitch Takeover of WV PEIA

As the Public Employees Insurance Agency weighs cost increases for its policyholders, "several of West Virginia's largest unions are proposing that they take control of the state's mammoth health insurance plan," the Charleston Daily Mail reports.

"The unions essentially would replace the finance board that oversees the state's (PEIA)" the article said, with the state putting funding "into a union-managed trust fund."

State officials held off responding pending further study of the proposal, the newspaper reported. It also noted that the group making the pitch "includes the West Virginia chapter of the American Federation of Teachers but not the other major teachers union, the West Virginia Education Association."