1. Overall

Open enrollment for active employees began today, and will continue through May 31st.  While our active employee and retiree health plan continues to outperform trends in the healthcare markets – both in keeping members healthier, and in the cost of providing health care -- health care cost increases throughout the country have been much higher than usual this year and our plan is no exception.    The overall costs of health premiums for the state and for active employees will increase 9.86% as of July 1, 2025.  Non-Medicare retirees will see a cost increase of 10.70%.    While the overall trend of rising healthcare costs is not something we can control, we will continue to do whatever we can to minimize cost increases while protecting the critical benefits that keep state employees healthier and better able to serve the public. These increases would have been higher had they not already been mitigated by numerous initiatives of the joint Health Care Cost Containment Committee with the State Comptroller, and it is hoped that next years’ experience will be better.

Because these increases are high in comparison to what we’ve been able to achieve in most years, employees are advised to look carefully at their plan choices to see if alternative plans may be available.   For instance, the big change in the Quality First Select (narrow network ) Plan described below – now including Hartford Healthcare among in network providers – may make it more appropriate for many members.   The Standard Access plan for families will increase over $48 per month to  $534.23.    Even after the increases described below, the members switching their family coverage from the Standard Access to the Quality First Select plan will pay only  $412.59 per month.  Other options also exist – as always, members are asked to carefully review their choices to make sure their providers are in network with whatever choice they make.

2. Narrow network

We have good and bad news about the high-quality Narrow Network plan that was added to state employee plan choices in October of 2020.  This plan is not a contractually required option, but an option the parties (SEBAC and the State) agreed to add because it was in their mutual interests.   Now called “Quality First Select,” the plan is an ongoing joint effort to keep costs down and quality up by offering a limited network of top tier providers who are measured first on quality, and then on reasonable cost.   Out-of-network coverage is available under this plan, but at a significantly higher cost.  

Originally, to encourage employees to give that plan a try, the State agreed that in addition to the cost savings that are inherent in the product, 67% of the state’s cost savings would also go to employees in the early years of the plan. However, the plan has never attracted significant numbers of state employees because, unlike the standard plan options, it was not required nor able to include all the hospitals and hospital systems in the state.  Hartford Healthcare was unwilling to participate in the narrow network plan. The good news is that Hartford Healthcare will be joining the narrow network effective July 1, 2025.    That will make the narrow network an option for many more members.   And it will remain significantly cheaper than other plan options

The bad news is that the health care actuaries project smaller savings than we’ve previously seen, and the 67% state share of the savings which employees were offered in prior years will be reduced to 50%.   Still far better than is offered in any other product where the state keeps all its share of any savings that are achieved.  

So, in addition to the medical trend increases that the other plans are seeing, the premium share percentages that employees pay will go up.  Single coverage will increase from 9% to 10.5%, one plus one will increase from 11% to 12.5% and family will increase from 11.5% to 13%. These are still the best rates available of any plan, despite the increase.

This increase will take effect immediately for employees moving from other products to the Quality First product as of July 1, 2025, since even with that increase, the overall cost will be a savings for those employees as compared to staying with their current plan.   Employees on the Quality First product prior to July 1, 2025, and remaining on that product will see the increase phased in over three years.   So, their premiums share percentages will be only 9.5% for single, 11.5% for one plus one, and 12% for families as of 2025.

It is our hope that the Quality First product will continue to grow and provide a positive alternative option to the standard plan for many employees.   And as with all the plans, we will continue to do whatever we can to keep the quality as high as possible and the costs as low as possible in the interests of state employees and the public we serve.