Texas public school districts who have opted out of TRS ActiveCare have been anxiously awaiting legislative action in the hopes the state would gift more monies to help subsidize the cost of their group health plans.
Calallen ISD in Corpus Christi, Texas is one of those districts:
“Update – Benefits Open Enrollment Moved to August 2023! Due to pending legislative changes, our open enrollment is pushed back to August 2023. One of the key legislative budget items being requested by Teacher Retirement System (TRS) is financial support for healthcare plans to reduce premium rate increases, these monies would flow to both TRS-ActiveCare districts and others like CISD with district sponsored healthcare plans. We apologize for the inconvenience, however, we are hopeful that with these legislative changes we are able to bring favorable health insurance premiums for our employees in August.”
Unfortunately for Calallen ISD and others, that didn’t happen. Instead, the state gifted $588,000,000 to the TRS ActiveCare government health plan thus giving the government health plan a competitive edge over their commercial competitors. This is in addition to the $286,337,761 allocated to help offset a premium increase by the Texas legislature to TRS ActiveCare last year. There remains the question of whether these cash infusions will cover plan deficits going forward.
It’s likely Calallen ISD will receive a rate increase because that’s the nature of health insurance. The question is, how much will these rates increase for Plan Year 2023-2024? And will costs be mitigated by reducing current benefits?
Calallen ISD is a member of the TSHBP. TSHBP is scheduled to release their 2023-2024 rates and benefits soon.
