Kaiser Permanente’s statewide membership losses in the California Public Employees’ Retirement System this year also hold true for the Sacramento region.
The dominant HMO in the CalPERS program, Kaiser was the big loser when members picked coverage for 2014. The health plan had a statewide net loss of almost 13,000 members, including almost 1,500 in the four-county Sacramento metropolitan area.
Most members who switched plans went for cheaper alternatives, according to a CalPERS staff report. Many migrated to Blue Shield, which scored a net gain of just over 6,000 members statewide, 2,374 of them from the Sacramento region. The numbers are relatively small compared to total membership. Kaiser has more than 500,000 members in the program but is not accustomed to losing them.
Kaiser spokeswoman Amy Thoma said in a statement that the company is “taking several steps to enhance our competitiveness.”
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CalPERS dramatically altered its HMO lineup for 2014, adding four plans to compete with Kaiser and Blue Shield. Anthem Blue Cross, the only new plan that offers coverage statewide, attracted over 11,000 members, including 1,375 locally. Other local members picked non-HMO plans; a total of 261,839 participate in the CalPERS program.
The goal was to boost competition and cut costs. It worked.
More CalPERS members changed plans for 2014 than last year and because they picked cheaper alternatives, they saved a total of $21.3 million statewide.
State workers who are covered by Kaiser through the CalPERS program pay $662 a month for single coverage in 2014, up more than 8 percent from 2013. State workers who went with Blue Shield NetValue, the cheaper of two Blue Shield plans, pay $576 for single coverage this year. That’s down 0.3 percent from 2013.
Date: Feb 18, 2014