The heads of Dallas' police and firefighter associations say some of their members are weighing offers from other cities now that Dallas is ending its most widely used employee health plan.
Starting Jan. 1, 2027, the city will no longer offer the Blue Choice Copay PPO to active employees or to retirees younger than 65, WFAA reported Tuesday. The City Council approved the change Sept. 16.
Employees will choose between two remaining medical plans, a Blue Essentials primary care physician plan and a health savings account plan, both built on the statewide Blue Essentials network, which is narrower than the PPO's.
The city's reasoning
The city's benefits consultant told council that keeping the PPO would cost Dallas an extra $10 million, and that employee contributions to it would have to rise by about 40% to keep the current cost split, according to the report. City officials have said the new design is meant to hold down costs while improving care coordination and pushing more people toward primary care.
"We are facing significant cost increases in health plans, the steepest in nearly two decades," City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert said, while acknowledging the change is difficult.
City data cited in the report shows about 94.5% of providers overlap between the two networks. Looking only at doctors and facilities that employees and their families actually used, about 1% would not be available on Blue Essentials.
