HONOLULU—Hawaii public school teachers are suing to prevent their health insurance coverage from changing at the end of the year.
The lawsuit filed in Circuit Court on Tuesday seeks to keep more than 15,000 active and retired school teachers covered by the Voluntary Employees' Beneficiary Association, or VEBA.
The teachers claim the VEBA trust is more solvent and less costly to operate than the Employer-Union Benefits Trust Fund, or EUTF, which is scheduled to cover teachers by next year.
Legislators voted this year to end the VEBA trust and cover all state employees by one health insurer.
Gov. Linda Lingle has warned that the EUTF's troubled finances threaten its ability to pay doctors for medical bills.
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