Description

The MEA, through it’s subsidiary the Michigan Education Special Services Association (MESSA), is diverting over $367 million in badly needed funds from classrooms. It does this through its practice of reselling Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance products under it’s own banner.

MESSA is redundant organization (Blue Cross Blue Shield already provides the same administrative functions) that marks up its product (which is buys from Blue Cross Blue Shield), and withholds the rebates it earns through the good health of its members (rebates given by Blue Cross Blue Shield to reflect cost savings) so it can fatten its executive ranks and manipulate its own political objectives (by deciding when and where to change the rate it charges for its Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance). The MEA is selling its members short, it should live up to its own words and recognize that these funds belong to “our members and their school districts.”