Healthcare information: 04/07/10

Update on Health Care Advisory Committee of which Brenda Berglund and Linda Jackson are Local 306 Representatives…

At the 2nd meeting in April, the county introduced 2 new plans from Health Partners. The first is called “3 for free” and it carries a $500 deductible and 10% co-pays on many of the covered services. The “3 for free” refers to 3 office calls for every insured person in your family before you have to start paying for office calls. Preventive office visits for immunizations, well-child checks and physicals are still free. Prescriptions are tiered and brand name drugs would be expensive. The out-of-pocket maximums are $2000 for singles and $4000 for families. Prescriptions will not count towards the deductible, but that might be negotiable.

I liked this plan because our premiums go up only .13% and the expenses are 10% of the costs and our out-of-pocket max isn’t terrible. It still represents cost-shifting to employees, but I think the days of no deductible and no co-pays are over if we don’t want to see our annual premiums go up 10-15% every year. I asked about a county contribution of $500 in some kind of health savings account that could be used to pay for the $500 deductible. I also asked about extending it for 2 years to see how employees will be impacted.

The 2nd plan was designed to copy the state’s benefit package and looks a lot like the “3 for free”, but the premium increases were higher than .13%.

The county and HP came with one of those interactive voting systems. They asked us to vote on our preference for one of these two plans. Some people at the meeting were reluctant to vote because it seemed that the county was trying to steer us to one of these plans. Nancy H and Shirley Martin assured us that this is not their intent.

Next meeting scheduled for 4/28/10. Brenda Berglund is also attending a Minneapolis Employees Labor Management benefits group meeting on 4/19 to learn more about their insurance package.