HMO
Prices Skyrocket?
If
you use the Blue Cross HMO, you may find an unpleasant surprise. The
HMO increases range from 30% to 65%. Huh??? 65%? That is a pretty huge
jump! This means that approximately 23% of the city employees will
see a huge increase in their health insurance costs. Was this perhaps
the reason for all the artful dancing that was done by city staff during
the benefits portion of the budget meeting? Could be.
Somehow
I do not think that Blue Cross hit the city with this without warning.
Kinda makes you wonder why this wasn't mentioned during the budget
meetings. Well, maybe not. Kinda hard to say you aren't raising the
cost of health care when you are blasting it through the roof for such a
large percentage of your employees.
But
look on the bright side, if you can survive until the April merit raise
you can defray this income hit a bit. Wait a minute, I forgot about the
pension cost increase. My bad.
Oh
well, Looks like yet another year of wage erosion. *sigh* But look on the
bright side at least we are appreciated! What do you mean you don't feel cherished?
You better feel cherished and appreciated right this minute! Are they
not putting up plaques at city hall to raise our moral? Who
cares if you can't pay your electric bill, those plaques cost money! Not
as much money as decent raises and benefits but still they cost!
Those
of you who have HMO’s should let council know how this is going to
affect your choices and your budget this year.
11-01-05
Can
we say un-timely?
- Medical and drug cards need to be given to employees before the end of
December. Last year the cards
were not available until after January started.
This caused lots of problems for employees especially when getting
prescriptions filled. Hopefully
this will not occur again, but to be safe side fill prescriptions early,
schedule appointments late.
11-01-05
Bye Bye Humana
- The City is switching
to United Health Care which is welcome news.
They have a MUCH larger network in this area.
Humana had a sizable network, but NOT in
Texas
.
This should reduce ‘out of network’ PPO costs for both the
employees and the city.
11-01-05
What
Drug Formularies?
- Employees should be able to access drug formularies prior to signing up
for insurance. Will this
happen? The answer given to
one employee was that THEY would have to contact United Healthcare and
Blue Cross / Blue Shield HMO for the 2006 formularies. Don’t we have
Health Benefit Coordinators? Isn’t this something the city should be
doing? This is really not an acceptable answer. Come on, private industry
and other municipal governments seem to be able to get this information to
their employees before signing up for a medical plan, why can’t the City
of
Dallas
? Since this is currently
unavailable from our own Benefits department, the Steelworkers Association
will try to track them down. We will attempt to get the location within
the next week, so it can be listed on our website as soon as possible.
11-01-05
Get
the Fax!
If you
have a fax you can be the first to know what is happening. Simply fax your name and fax number to
214-760-7423 to be put on the fax info
list. Want to be notified at
home when a new newsletter is published? Email your home email address to newsletter@cityofdallasemployees.com
or fax it to 214-760-7423. Or you can always just check on our website.
