Active school employees to have 3 different health insurance plans to select from

School Board member Anthony Fontana, who is the chairman of the insurance committee, did not sugar coat it, nor did he paint a pretty picture when he talked about the future of health insurance premiums.
Fontana explained to a group of school employees who attended Monday night’s insurance committee meeting that the school board is losing money with the insurance plan the school board has now.
The school board is not collecting enough in premiums to pay for the health claims. Because of that, the school board is scraping its old insurance plan in January and is in the process of trying to decide on a totally different plan for 2016.
Fontana explained to the employees that the committee has been meeting with United Healthcare representatives in search of ways to lower future insurance premiums while at the same time not losing money.
The committee did decide on four plans, including a Medicare plan, but did not decide on what the premiums will be for those plans.
The entire school board will decided on how much the premiums will cost each employee at tonight’s school board meeting. Once they agree on that, then school active employees and retirees will be educated on the three plans over the next month.
Here are the four plans.

Enhanced plan:
This is the top tier of the three plans, which also means the rates are expected to be higher.
A doctor visit in the network is $25 and a specialist visit is $45.
In the network, the new deductible for a single person is $1,500 and $3,000 for a family. The old insurance plan deductible was half that.
It will still be 80-20 after the deductible is met and like the old plan, the maximum amount of out of pocket expense is $6,000 for single and $12,000 for family under the enhanced plan.
Lloyd Campisi, who is the insurance agent for the school board, explained that the major difference between the Enhanced Plan and the old plan is the higher deductible.
“The pain that will be inflicted when they select the Enhanced Plan is that instead of having the $750 deductible, the new plan will double that and it will be $1,500,” Campisi said. “That will hurt lots of folks.”

The basic plan:
This plan will be cheaper than the Enhanced plan.
A doctor’s visit, under the basic plan, will be $40 per doctor’s visit and a specialist visit is $80.
The deductible in the basic plan will be $3,000 a person and $6,000 a family in the network.
It will still be 80-20 after the deductible is met and like the old plan, the maximum amount of out of pocket expense is $6,000 for single and $12,000 for family under the basic plan.

The Health Savings Account Plan:
The cheapest of the three plans is expected to be the Health Savings Account Plan.
Before any benefits are paid, a single person has to meet a $3,000 deductible. There is no co-pay with this plan.
But what this plan has is a self health savings account. The theory, Campisi explained, is that you open up a health saving account and the money that normally goes towards high insurance premiums would be deposited into your health savings account. When you need to pay for a doctor’s visit or medication, you use the money in the health savings account.
Campisi said he will explain more in detail about the health savings plan over the next month or two.

Medicare Plan:
This plan is staying the same with a small adjustment in prescription drug cost. This prescription drug costs change applies to all of the plans, not just to the retirees.