Wednesday, September 11, 2013

State employee health plans a dangerous ripoff

The Kentucky state employee health plans are out for 2014 and it is not a pretty sight.

The cheapest Humana plan, called Standard CDHP costs $641.50 for an individual plan. The employee contribution into that amount is $12.98 and the rest comes from taxpayers. We fund the plan with $250 for the employee to spend on co-payments and deductible for the year. The maximum out-of-pocket liability for the employee is $3500 and the deductible is $1750.

That means in addition to the monthly premium, the customer is on the hook for the first $1750 in medical expenses each year. That's the equivalent of a zero deductible plan costing 787.33 a month (641.60 + (1750/12)). After the deductible, it's a 70/30 plan. That means anything substantial gets you up to the $3500 annual out-of-pocket -- which includes the deductible. So if you add the additional $145.83 a month in for the additional out of pocket ((3500-1750)/12), we are paying $933.16 per month for health coverage for each employee.

It's not hard to imagine that whoever negotiated these rates for our state employees had in mind a plan to go back and argue that it would be cheaper to just throw them all on the ObamaCare "exchange."

It's yet another reason to storm the castle to stop Gov. Beshear from illegally throwing us into ObamaCare.