As Washington County renews insurance for employees for 2018, they will not see many changes.

Human Resources Administrator for Washington County Amber Day shared the changes at Tuesday’s Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting, “For the employee rates for medical will not change, the county will continue to provide the coverage that it has the previous year. The dental rates the county will still continue to pay for the employee only, the cost did go up just a tad for that it’s a 57-cent increase, so the county will contribute $28.92 to each policy. Vision rates the county does not contribute to, but those did go up a little bit very slightly.” Day also said the Internal Revenue Service issued changes for Health Savings Account contribution limits up to $50 for an individual and $150 for family for the high deductible plan. Also, flex limits went up $50 to $2,650 into flex for medical expenses.

County Treasurer Jeff Garrett said people should take a moment to look at past years for the county regarding health insurance, “Over the last 10 years, our plans averaged less than 1.5% increase.” He said, “That’s a pretty big deal to me. We need to keep in mind that the biggest payer of those premiums is the county. And the fact that we’re able to hold those steady again is, I mean, it’d be a huge savings to the county next year. Probably to the tune of, if you had even like a four or five percent increase it’d be $60,000 to $70,000.” County Engineer Jacob Thorius added the employees have also been good consumers. And Day referred to many taking part in the wellness program.

The county’s open enrollment period is November 14-28.