Office of the Nassau County Comptroller

Mineola - "Mounting employee and retiree health-insurance costs continue to strain Nassau County's budget and, unless brought under control, could be a prescription for further financial hemorrhaging." So declared Nassau County Comptroller Howard S. Weitzman during a Mineola news conference this morning (Tuesday, January 7) at which he unveiled a series of health insurance cost-savings initiatives contained in a 24-page report prepared by his office.

Entitled 'Providing Affordable Health Insurance for County Employees and Retirees in the Midst of a Fiscal Crisis: Some Suggested Solutions," the report stems from the comptroller's office's examination of potential modifications to the county's current health-benefits programs that will help the county contain and reduce its escalating costs, while continuing to provide quality health insurance coverage for its employees and retirees.

According to the report, Nassau County could save as much as $59 million by 2006 if its most significant recommendations are adopted. These include: requiring participants to contribute a portion of their health-insurance premiums (as most private-sector employers, New York State and many other municipalities require) or changing the type of benefits offered without requiring contributions, thereby saving the county from $18-$44 million; changing retiree-eligibility requirements for lifetime health insurance benefits, with corresponding savings of up to $10 million; eliminating dual-family coverage for county employees or retirees who are married to each other - a policy that may not increase coverage for the family but that doubles the costs for the county - resulting in $5 million in savings.

Nassau County provides its employees and retirees health insurance through the New York State Health Insurance Program (NYSHIP), which administers The Empire Plan, and is believed to be the largest NYSHIP participant aside from New York State itself. Nevertheless, the county does not currently have a role in setting NYSHIP policy. To protect the interests of the 22,904 Nassau County employees and retirees enrolled in NYSHIP, Comptroller Weitzman maintains that, at the very least, the county should be represented on NYSHIP's Participating Agency Advisory Council. The Council includes representatives from other participating agencies, such as local school districts.

In compiling its report, the comptroller's office consulted with New York State and a number of other municipalities and includes a snapshot-summary of their instructive health-coverage policies within its pages.

"Our report and its recommendations are not revolutionary. Rather, they reflect what other municipalities are doing and doing well," said Weitzman. "Nassau County has platinum-plated health-benefits practices that we simply cannot afford."

The comptroller noted that the county's costs for employee and retiree health insurance have increased dramatically over the last 20 years, growing by 494 percent between 1982 and 2002 to some $135.4 million, and nearly doubling every five years. These skyrocketing costs have exerted tremendous pressure on the county's budget, according to Weitzman, who anticipates that, unchecked, they will amount to approximately $237 million, or 7.8 percent, of the county's projected budget by 2006. For comparison purposes, he noted that this is the equivalent of 30.3 percent of the county's total expected property tax revenues that year.

While acknowledging that some of the recommendations contained in his report are being discussed in labor negotiations, Weitzman said, "the report lays out the seriousness of the problems we face, their implications and savings potentials. The county's ability to provide necessary quality health-care benefits for employees and retirees at a reasonable cost will be brought into question if we don't act quickly and responsibly to contain and reduce health-insurance premium costs."

Weitzman is meeting with the Suozzi administration and county legislative leaders to discuss his proposals.

Comptroller's Report Suggests Initiatives to Curb Nassau's Mounting Health Insurance Costs

Comptroller's Report Suggests Initiatives
to Curb Nassau's Mounting Health Insurance Costs