{"id":7351,"date":"2015-05-19T16:04:39","date_gmt":"2015-05-19T21:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=7351"},"modified":"2015-05-19T20:13:36","modified_gmt":"2015-05-20T01:13:36","slug":"out-of-pocket-health-care-expenses-to-rise-for-state-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=7351","title":{"rendered":"Out-of-Pocket Health Care Expenses to Rise for State Employees"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The State of Wisconsin Group Insurance Board <a href=\"http:\/\/etf.wi.gov\/boards\/agenda-items-2015\/gib0519\/agenda.pdf\">met<\/a> today and <a href=\"http:\/\/host.madison.com\/wsj\/news\/local\/health_med_fit\/board-approves-state-worker-health-care-cuts\/article_0e1f9db3-b900-5514-8c0a-01509bcfec44.html\">voted<\/a> to increase out-of-pocket health care expenses for state employees, including University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty. The changes go into effect January 1, 2016, and will net the state approximately $85 million over two years.<\/p>\n<p>Governor Scott Walker proposed the changes as part of the 2015-17 biennial budget, which required the Department of Employee Trust Funds to identify and implement $81 million in savings from January 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017. The changes should\u00a0also eliminate the so-called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cigna.com\/assets\/docs\/about-cigna\/informed-on-reform\/cadillac-tax-fact-sheet.pdf\">Cadillac Tax<\/a> on\u00a0employers who offer high-cost plans to their workers, set to go into effect in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the savings will be realized through new deductibles and doubled\u00a0out-of-pocket expenses for workers. Employees with single coverage\u00a0will\u00a0pay a $250 deductible and a maximum out-of-pocket expense of $1,000 annually, while employees on the family\u00a0plan will pay a $500 deductible and out-of-pocket maximum\u00a0of\u00a0$2,000 annually.\u00a0Essentially this is a pay cut of as much as $750 to $1,500 annually depending on the\u00a0health insurance benefit plan an employee chooses.<\/p>\n<p>Edited at 8:10 pm with correct figures for essential pay cut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The State of Wisconsin Group Insurance Board met today and voted to increase out-of-pocket health care expenses for state employees, including University of Wisconsin-Madison faculty. The changes go into effect January 1, 2016, and will net the state approximately $85&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/?p=7351\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[132],"class_list":["post-7351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-the-state","tag-employee-trust-funds","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7351"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7357,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7351\/revisions\/7357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profs.wisc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}