Health Insurance for Active and Retired City Employees: Asheville, Denver, and Oklahoma City

Controlling Health Care Costs: Three Cities and Their Strategies

by Robert L. Clark, Melinda Sandler Morrill, and Stephanie Riche

Download: Health Insurance for Active and Retired City Employees: Asheville, Denver, and Oklahoma City
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Public and private employers face the same challenge: how to control the continuing growth in health care costs. A new issue brief from the Center for State and Local Government Excellence examines how three city governments – Asheville, Denver, and Oklahoma City – have responded to rising health care costs.

All three cities use a range of strategies, including:

Wellness programs
Chronic disease management
Employee clinics
Cost shifting to employees
Plan design changes
Trust fund.

Although all three cities offer retiree health care benefits and require retirees who are eligible for Medicare to enroll, only one city has begun to prefund retiree health obligations. The other two cities pay for retiree health on a pay-as-you-go basis, typical of American local governments.

With an aging workforce and a growing ratio of retirees to active workers, governments recognize they cannot be complacent about a benefit as important – and costly – as health insurance. This brief sheds light on some of the strategies that show promise.