×

Washington Commission OKs health insurance program

MARIETTA — Washington County commissioners passed the renewal from the County Employee Benefits Consortium of Ohio for the county employee health insurance program for 2017 at their meeting Thursday.

According to County Clerk Rick Peoples, Washington County has participated in the CEBCO group of counties since 2009.

After several meetings with department heads, elected officials and employees the commissioners decided to pass on the current program in favor of a plan with a 13.1 percent increase.

Commissioner Ron Feathers said this increase will affect approximately 371 out of the 600 county employees.

“We have decided to (eliminate) the current plan in favor of a slightly higher plan that would save a quarter of a million dollars,” he said.

Feathers said the county will still have to pay approximately a quarter million dollars for 2017 than 2016.

“Not all of that money comes from county general funds,” he said. “Probably around 60 percent comes out of county general and the rest comes from other funding sources.”

The commissioners said this was not an easy decision.

“We feel we are trying to be fiscally responsible and trying to move forward,” said Feathers. “By taking these preemptive steps to protect the solvency of Washington County we won’t have to wait and lay people off or maybe watch entire departments dissolve.”

According to Feathers, with this plan the county will still have to come up with an additional quarter of a million dollars to pay for the plan.

Though the offer for the renewal seems high, Peoples said this was the best option for the county.

“While our offer for renewal for 2017 seems rather high at 13.1 percent, we need to remember we entered the last two years with less than a 0.5 percent increase in each,” said Peoples. “So over the years it has been extremely beneficial to have been a member of CEBCO.”

According to Peoples, if the commissioners would have renewed the plan with no change in benefits, the plan would have had an additional cost of $567,343.     Feathers said the current plan requires employees to pay $850 out-of-pocket, with an increase in deductibles and emergency room visits.

“We used to have a $1,000 deductible, but now we have a $1,500 deductible,” he said. “We used to have $150 plan to go to the emergency room, but now it will cost you $250. We are trying to get the people to move over into physician’s care or some other type of facility, and before we had 70/30 co-insurance and now it’s 50/50.”

Commissioner Rick Walters said this renewal has its advantages.

According to Walters, the prescription drug co-pay is staying the same and there will be no change to the prescription drug programs.

“The idea though is to move forward in baby steps to try and keep a plan that still has co-pays,” said Walters. “We feel we’ve done what we can do to help the county sustain health care for the county employees without putting a huge burden on the employees and still be fair to the taxpayer.”

Walters said the commissioners discussed other plans, such as a healthy savings account option, before moving forward with their decision.

“We did have an HSA option which was an option that would actually reduce the county premium, but it had a $4,000 deductible and a $6,200 out of pocket,” he said.

Walters said this option would have saved the county $150,000 overall.

NEWSLETTER

Today's breaking news and more in your inbox

I'm interested in (please check all that apply)
Are you a paying subscriber to the newspaper? *

Starting at $4.62/week.

Subscribe Today