Welcome to AO, After Obamacare.
Via Helena IR
The Bullock administration has approved rate increases of 15 percent to 27 percent and lower benefits for the 2015 state employee health plan, which covers 16,000 state employees and retirees.
The rate increases, while largely opposed by an advisory committee of employees, had been recommended last month by state health plan managers.
“These adjustments are necessary to respond to increasing health care costs and serve to remind us that we need to be at the cutting edge of health care innovation,” said David Parker, spokesman for the governor.
Plan managers said a variety of factors have led to higher costs, including an “open enrollment” period last fall that allowed employees to add family members to the plan and expensive referrals from the state’s new employee health clinics.[…]
Nyman noted that the plan now has only one manager, Cigna, which won the contract in 2014. Before, it had competing products from different managing companies.