volunteered over the weekend<\/a> to join the effort after Sherrill created a broad working group to examine the State Health Benefits Program and School Employees\u2019 Health Benefits Program.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019ll volunteer to be on the committee that cuts your health benefits cost,\u201d Cuban said on social media. \u00a0\u201cYou need someone from the outside that is objective, and can stand up to the big healthcare conglomerates.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sherrill\u2019s response marks a shift from a day earlier, when her office welcomed Cuban\u2019s interest but stopped short of saying whether the governor would accept his offer.<\/p>\n
The State Health Benefits Program Reform Working Group, headed by New Jersey Chief Operating Officer Kellie Doucette, is scheduled to hold its first meeting on October 16. \u00a0The group includes labor unions, health care organizations, insurers, local government groups and representatives of all four partisan legislative offices.<\/p>\n
The administration has said it can add participants and outside experts as the review proceeds.<\/p>\n
Cuban has advocated for greater transparency in health care pricing and prescription drug costs, including standardized contracts for pharmacy benefit managers, disclosure of pricing, fees and rebates, and restrictions on contractual provisions that prevent employers from seeing how their health care dollars are spent.<\/p>\n
State Sen. Declan O\u2019Scanlon (R-Little Silver), a member of Sherrill\u2019s health benefits committee and a longtime critic of the state\u2019s management of public employee health costs, urged Sherrill on Saturday to accept Cuban\u2019s offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t take Mark Cuban up on his offer, we\u2019re not really serious,\u201d O\u2019Scanlon said.<\/p>\n
New Jersey administers public employee health plans covering approximately 690,000 members across state, local government and education plans. \u00a0Sherrill launched the reform effort after reaching an agreement last month with 17 state employee unions that shields state workers from higher contribution rates in 2027 while beginning a broader review of the system.<\/p>\n
The working group is expected to examine vendor contracting, provider networks, prescription drug costs, plan design, premium structures, governance and data transparency, with recommendations to Sherrill and more detailed implementation work continuing into 2027.<\/p>\n
Cuban\u2019s participation would add a prominent outsider to an effort that Sherrill has said must produce more than another temporary response to rising premiums.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want accountability and results,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gov. Mikie Sherrill is taking Mark Cuban up on his offer to help New Jersey rein in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-872191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}