College board approves new health care plans
The board members approved renewing the college's contract with Cigna for employee and retiree health plans for 2017 during their board meeting Monday.
Cigna replaced
There was an increase of about 8 percent to the employees' health insurance premiums, according to
Two new health care plans will be offered to employees, replacing the current HMO and PPO plans. DesPlas said the new plans were developed after initial negotiations with Cigna for renewal of the current HMO plan included a proposed 19 percent increase to premiums.
"We couldn't afford 19 percent," DesPlas said. "We started to work with Cigna to make changes in the plan to reduce that increase to what we are looking at now."
A PPO core plan and a high-deductible health plan (HDHP) are the two new options being offered by the college.
Desplas described the core plan as having higher copays for office visits, urgent care and emergency room visits than the HMO plan.
The premiums for the core plan are about 9 percent higher than the current HMO plan, which will not be offered next year. Desplas said the plan would be good for employees who visit a doctor's office about three to five times a year.
The HDHP will offer a lower premium cost but has a higher deductible than the core health care plan. As part of the HDHP, the college will pay
Desplas said employees will need to pay the
The college will also make minimal decreases to the percentage it contributes to an employees' health-care coverage. Depending on an employee's salary, the college is cutting what it pays into an employees' health-care plan by 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points. An employee making more than
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