Merced County officials plan to hire a third-party contractor to review the county’s costs for its healthcare benefits after years of employee outcry over skyrocketing premiums.
The Board of Supervisors during its Tuesday’s meeting unanimously approved issuing a request for proposals for a consultant or firm to do the work. County Executive Officer Mark Hendrickson said he expects the evaluation will assess medical, dental, vision and ancillary benefits, claim utilization trends and administrative fees, as well as wellness incentives.
“This is not unique to Merced County,” Hendrickson said about the healthcare costs. “As these costs continue to rise significantly across the country – and they are – this is impacting local governments everywhere, and their employees.
“We will certainly bring what our broker has to say about next year’s costs, and if recent history holds, we probably should expect those costs to go up and not down,” Hendrickson said.
In the same meeting, the five county supervisors heard from union leaders who partly attributed the challenges of retaining and recruiting staff to rising insurance costs. They brought up the health insurance costs during a legally-required public hearing on the county’s current job vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts.
Since at least October 2023, county staff started speaking out during public comment at board meetings and protesting in front of the M Street County Administration Building in anticipation of a 12% increase to their healthcare premiums.
While a number of labor unions secured 10% pay raises since then, and the board agreed to pay a larger share of medical insurance costs, labor leaders on Tuesday said the health insurance costs remain burdensome.
For example, Roberto Torres, president of the Merced County Deputy Sheriff’s Association, said that a big reason the sheriff’s office has struggled to retain experienced deputies and recruit new ones is due, in part, to the rising costs of medical coverage. For some deputies in the union, health coverage for them and their families amounts to half their take-home pay, Torres said.
Members of Merced County Law Enforcement Sergeant’s Association penned an op-ed in the Merced Sun-Star addressing similar concerns.
“With every so-called ‘raise,’ there’s often a significant increase in employee contributions to benefits. That cancels out the raise entirely,” Kevin Blake and George Sziraki wrote.
Merced County since 2003 has used the brokerage firm PRISMHealth for employee benefits, among other services. Merced County currently offers medical insurance through Anthem Blue Cross and last year phased out what was known as a “Cadillac” plan to cut costs.
The supervisors agreed that reassessing the county’s healthcare options is necessary and a long time coming. Supervisor Daron McDaniel asked that the assessment include looking into any special packages for law enforcement employees.
“As a longtime county employee, I’ve seen the healthcare costs from when I started to now just skyrocket,” said Supervisor Jim Pacheco, who previously worked as a sheriff’s deputy. “It’s affected a lot of my coworkers and partners. So I think this is a good step in the forward direction.”
Supervisors Josh Pedrozo and Scott Silveira expressed frustration over having to accept the increasing costs passed down from the insurer. Silveira cautioned that the assessment may conclude the county is already using the best option, and if better options do exist, they won’t be available to employees for another year.
“If there is an opportunity to make a change, that change doesn’t happen overnight,” he said. “…So (I) just kind of want to manage expectations.”