Humble City Council members voted to approve several changes to the city's health insurance plan on Nov. 14, including approving a mandatory shift for retirees on the plan to marketplace health insurance.

What you need to know

Sean Waggoner, executive vice president for Alliant Retirement Consulting, provided an overview of the changes including:

• Shifting retired employees to marketplace-based insurance
• A 3% increase to high deductible-based health plans
• A 7% increase to Preferred Provider Organization health plans
• Partnering with Next Level Prime for urgent care services

The city self-funds its health insurance plan for employees. However, Waggoner said without the changes, the city would have to fund a 117.3% increase in 2025 to mainly fund retiree benefits.

"We want to make sure we offer retiree benefits, and this is a trend that a lot of municipalities around the country are dealing with right now," Waggoner said during the meeting. "We all have limited amounts of money to spend on benefits, so we want to do as much as we can for our active employees that work for us now and then still hopefully take care of the retiree population."

Diving deeper

While the council approved moving retirees off of the city health insurance plan, the city will work with Alliant Individual Health Solutions to provide subsidies to retirees to be able to purchase health insurance through the marketplace. The subsidy will be paid out annually in a Health Reimbursement Arrangement budgeted at $770.83 per month for retirees.

Waggoner said the company would work closely with retirees to assist with navigating the health insurance marketplace and finding a plan which cover the needs of each individual.

Quote of note

"It's not that we're kicking off the retirees from the insurance, we're actually providing them with, I think, a better product," City Manager Jason Stuebe said during the meeting.