Whitnall's Proposed Health Insurance Plan Would Result in Higher Co-Pays

Facing an increase of several hundred thousand dollars in health insurance coverage for the 2012-13 school year, Whitnall School District Business Manager Doug Johnson and the district’s insurance consultant firm managed to swing the pendulum the other way.

But it will cost district employees more out of their own pockets in the form of higher co-pays, Johnson told the on Monday.

In April, Humana indicated it was estimating a 7.1 percent increase to the district’s current plan, or an increased expenditure of roughly $300,000 to the district.

When Johnson asked for some options of shrinking that cost, Humana offered:

• Increasing the stop loss from $85,000 to $100,000
• Increasing drug co-pays from $15/$25 to $15/$30/$50
• Moving to Humana’s high performance network.

“All three of them would bring the increase down to one-half of one percent,” Johnson said. “We wanted to bring that down a little more. Zero looked like a good number, we thought.”

A fourth option, to increase office visit co-pays from $10 to $15 will result in a savings of $36,000 compared to this year.

The Board did not take action on the item but will likely do so next month.

New Board member Quin Brunette asked that teachers be able to meet with a Humana representative to have the changes explained.