Purdue employees will have a little more than three months to figure out their health care options for next year.
The Board of Trustees approved three new plan options – a PPO and two high-deductible plans with health savings accounts. As an incentive to get more employees into those consumer-driven plans, the university will contribute money to their health savings account.
President Mitch Daniels says he uses one as a university employee and thinks that’s the best option for keeping costs down.
“We won’t have cost-control in health care until we’re all cost-controllers,” he says, “and when you leave the job of cost-control to the HMO or government bureaucracy, it never works.”
Nearly a quarter of all Purdue employees already use the high-deductible plan currently offered. Use of the Co-Pay and PPO plans are nearly equal, with a few hundred more opting for the Co-Pay. The Co-Pay plan is being eliminated, because it’s the most expensive plan for Purdue.
Administrators say the goal is to modernize plans and encourage employees to be better health care consumers, which they say will help reduce or curb medical costs. Daniels says the two consumer-driven options will make people more aware of health care costs.
“I hope the federal law permits us to go further in the direction of consumerism.”
The human resources benefits advisor says all new plans will fully cover eligible preventive care and generic, preventive prescription drugs at no charge to employees.
The university is beginning an education effort to better inform all faculty and staff about the new health care plans. That will include information sessions and an online comparison tool. Open enrollment begins in late October.