By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Hays city commissioners unanimously approved renewal of the city employee insurance plan during their meeting Thursday night.

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas’ renewal rates for 2018 included a decrease of 0.67 percent in the city’s premium cost, according to Human Resources Director Erin Giebler.

It came as a pleasant surprise. Giebler told commissioners she was anticipating as much as a 21 percent cost increase.

City commissioner Lance Jones said he was “pretty certain two years ago when I came on here that we were going to have to bump up the city’s share, or I was going to request it, because of insurance costs on the rise. But I think you guys have done an excellent job of keeping the costs down,” he told Giebler, “so the employees don’t have to pay a tremendous amount.”

“We’ve been under that $9,500 average per employee cap on health insurance the city commission set in 2010,” Giebler pointed out. “We’re going into 2018 still being able to hold that cap and that’s thanks to our employees willing to change plans, willing to do a consumer-driven plan.”

With the Wage and Benefit Committee required to find the best insurance within the provided budget, the provider has changed several times during the past eight years.

“This is the first year in I don’t know how many years we’ve actually kept same plan. I know how annoying that can be to have deductibles changed on you, co-pays changed on you, and you don’t know how much your drugs are going to cost,” said Vice Mayor James Meier. “We have good employees who have been willing to do that in order to keep costs down for the city and I appreciate that.”

The city will pay up to $1,719,500 for the triple option health insurance plan and also authorize $100,000 to fund employees’ Health Savings Accounts both out of the Employee Benefit Levy Fund.