Information was shared by AACPS that talks about open enrollment and the cost of medical plans increasing by 6%, dental plans increasing by 4%, and vision increasing by 8%. We want to make sure that there are no misunderstandings about this. This does not refer to the employee contribution which continues to remain at 1.5% this year per the recently ratified contract.
If members ask about the increases, we would like to let them know that this is the increase in the cost of the plans due to insurance company recommendations based on a few different factors:
- The first is utilization from the prior insurance year. The insurance company analyzes the claims submitted by the universe of insured and their dependents, projects the cost of future claims in the coming year, and makes a recommendation to AACPS as to what they should charge for each tier of each plan.
- They also look at trends in the industry in terms of rising costs for health care. This is not something that AACPS can control nor is it something we can bargain over.
We can only bargain over the percentage of the plan we pay. AACPS is self-insured so they pay all the claims that are submitted by all AACPS employees and their families so they must budget for what they believe will be their costs for the year which comes from insurance company actuaries. This is what we successfully bargained over to keep the increases at a minimum and spread out over three years.
Also, we want to make sure that members are not comparing the 3% COLA increase to the 1.5% health care increase. The 3% is an increase in the total salary that a member makes while the 1.5% is the increase of one’s health care payment. The 3% salary increase is a much larger amount of money than the 1.5% increase in health care payments. Also, for members who qualify for a step, they received around a 5% salary increase over the previous year.
Lastly, we should remind our members that open enrollment is the time for them to make changes to how they want to be insured, and it is only for a small window each year which will be October 28th to November 12th in 2024. The only other time it is permissible to make changes to your plan is when there is a life event (marriage, divorce, death in the family, birth of a child etc..)
If you have any questions please feel free to contact the TAAAC office.
