City Commission - Special Meeting

All right, Madam Clerk, good to go. Mr. Attorney, good to go. Mr. Mayor, good to go.

Colleagues on the commission, good to go. Yes, sir. Staff. All right. Carmen, let me get an agenda, if you don't mind. Pass that this way. You don't gotta get up, just pass it this way. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. Meeting date, Wednesday, August 26th, 2026 at 5 p.m., Cochise Chambers, 500 Southwest 109 Avenue. Roll call, Madam Clerk. Thank you. Please stand for the invocation. Would anybody like to give the invocation? All right? Let's bow our heads. In Jesus' name I pray. Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for granting us the gift of life, the gift of family, the gift of friendshi

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you all for coming. Item four, public comments. Madam Clerk? Seeing no public comments, item five. A resolution of the City Commission of the City of Sweetwater selecting employee benefits insurance policies for fiscal year 2026-27, providing for authorization and providing for an effective date. Mayor Diaz, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. President. And let me start out by saying to all three companies, thank you so much for your way of participating and taking your rates to the level And if it's not the race the benefits or in some cases a combination of so thank you for that I want to thank straight out. Brown and Brown for an excellent. Brokership and the work that's done. Thank you that we got this unfortunately we got a last minute, but there was a lot of negotiations happening since Friday tool. about five minutes ago, so it's all in here to a point, but there's still some adjustments I heard that we gotta

Commissioner Saul, do you have the floor? Yeah, what would be the auto pocket for employee for admin?

Are you looking at this? No, she's looking at this.

Take a picture of it. Magnifier right here.

Okay, hold on. on specific sorry did you say okay it's hard to read this it really is i took a picture and i blew it up on my phone okay um max what is that uh preferred and then non-preferred it's 50 am i correct correct and then specialty is 50 percent of whatever the cost of the drug is i'm sorry 50 of the contracted amount And the contracted amount would be?

For $500 out of pocket. Correct. And that is built out or every incident?

Which is $3,500. $3,500. Okay. Sorry, I just wanted to get that clear.

Do me a favor, explain that again as if I was my six-year-old child.

Got it. So my question is, because you said prescription, so I want to make sure we're on the same page. If I take a monthly medication on diabetes, And that prescription is normally a hundred dollars. I don't know how much diabetes medication is. If anybody knows, let me know. Just give a number. You're saying the employee is going to pay $50.

But if there is a special medication, for instance, I was told that somebody, when I got a medication, it was $3,000. That could be a specialty medicine for cancer treatment. Okay. So at that point in this plan falls under that, it would be $1,500. Correct. And if you had to do it X amount, it will be 1500 until you meet the $3,500 stop loss is what it used to be.

And that is, how many options is that offering? Or is that just the option?

Got it. Now, we requested that you present us with, what did you say, max?

No, it wasn't my question. My question was, I asked you to present us with options to give the employees the same benefits that we had. So curative is the only one that did that. Correct.

And what does that look like? For admin, what does that look like?

I keep saying it right. Let me just throw in a question so I don't lose my frame of mind here. So Abbott's proposing, just so I understand, because I have alternate 2A, alternate 2B. Alternate 2A is 2.926968 gross annual cost. It says minus 7.4%. What does that mean? Minus 7.4% of all the other bids?

Got it. And then alternate B is $3 million. What is the difference between 2A and 2B, please?

No, I understand that. Forgive me, I should have asked a more direct question. The modification specifications are, what are they? What do they change?

Okay, so when you go to a doctor, when you go to your primary care physician, instead of $50, it's $20.

Because you said primary, what does that mean?

Good, so your primary care physician is $10. Correct. And a specialist is $20. Correct. Good, so they lowered it. And prescription drugs were what, and what are they now?

And what does that mean, $10, $25, $40, $80?

I've never heard you be loud. Okay. Does anybody want to step in? Because I'm going to keep firing. Does anybody need to step in? If you do, let me know. No, go ahead. I'm going to keep cranking away.

I'm going to try to follow her on this one, but go ahead.

Okay, so if an employee goes to the urgent care, how much is it?

Okay, and if an employee has to stay in the hospital overnight?

I'm sorry, can I jump in? You have the floor, go ahead. What about the ER?

So the difference between the 2A and the 2B, the 2A is what they originally proposed and 2B is what they're proposing today? Correct. And to lower that cost, it would be an additional 1% on the $3,022,000? Between both programs.

Does that mean that all other deductibles lower as well, you know, it's still it's still a $500 deductible correct just the year. So from 2.50 to 100. All right, so that's going to cost us an additional $30,000 a year is a 1% or 1.5% so 1.5. So it's going to be a 40 so it's going to be 45 so it's going to be Hold on, hold on. I know you guys are helping, but just hold what you got. So we're talking about an additional $45,000 a year, more or less.

Got it. Just an out of the head. Is that accurate? Good. You're doing great. Okay. That's interesting. Does anybody have any questions pertaining to that? No? Does anybody have any other questions pertaining to admin? Is there anything you want to say about admin?

So let's take the same scenario that we had before we use the diabetic, um, one for a hundred dollars. And we, we discussed that that will fall probably in the first ranks. Am I correct? Correct.

So that's where we would have the cancer medicine that we were talking earlier about the other one when we were talking about admit. Now you get the same $3,000. How much would that be? They have to pay in that.

Would it be more than that? No. Would it be the 50% coinsurance? So instead of the $1,500, the most that's going to be out of your pocket is going to be $50. Am I correct? Correct. That would be the best scenario.

Okay. Would that be the same on both sides of the program?

So you're telling me that the employees out there that have been hit with 150, $200 that we heard some of the complaints about the most that's going to be is $50. Correct.

Uh, question. If I can interject the other floor, go ahead. So Does United currently offer that? Yes. In our current plan?

Let me explain what I mean. We currently have employees that are going through some stuff and they gotta pay a lot of money. What you're explaining right now is that they wouldn't have to pay that money. My question again.

I guess what the president is asking, if we use the same scenario on the heavy-duty one that, you know, it's a lot more money and so on.

So it's going to be a maximum for the employees that are there now that are paying a large amount of money for their specialized medication. The most out of their pocket is going to be $50 compared to, it could have been 250, 500, whatever it could be.

So let me ask this question. Um, if an employee goes to have a surgery right now with the current plan that we'd have, what is the total out of pocket for the employee for United?

What that means is also some of the employees are now, or some of the people that are taking fusion-type medicines, that they have the procedures, a medical procedure, Yeah, okay. So I wanted to make sure because that is the same when it goes through that to any insurance. But the difference here is, let's just say it's the same scenario that... your no more doctor says you have to take this type of fusion for iron, which is the most common one, especially in women when they're about to give birth or whatever. From what I understand, that's like the new thing now. So by doing that, what will be the cost of that employee at that point?

You have the floor, Commissioner Diaz, go ahead.

Yes, the un-united what would be the out-of-pocket right now for employee $3,500. Okay, it was that's what it was before or it's been like dozens.

Thank you. And that would be applied to the HMO on the to your HMO plan.

It would be for the PPO, what they call it.

Okay. Now, my other question that I have, if any employee is going to have an MRI, how much do they have to pay, the copayment?

So basically a pet imaging, which is probably the more expensive of the MRIs, if I'm not mistaken. I could be wrong. What is, if I could just ask, what is the normal for a pet? which is being done more and more every day because of, unfortunately, cancer.

Any other commission you'd add anything? Commissioner Hidalgo, area four. I want to ask a question. You asked earlier the buy-up for United. What's the difference on there?

So let's say right now someone has HMO, they want to bump themselves up. What's the cost of one and the other? What's the difference, like the buy-up difference?

149 monthly monthly all right so I have a I have a few questions give me the difference between just to be fair United, ABMED, Curative, give me your professional recommendations as our consultant to the city of Sweetwater, go. Don't look at the mayor, look at me, go.

Oh, she was actually thinking when I looked at her.

So you punted, you didn't give the recommendation, right? Oh, she did. She did. I did. She did. What's your recommendation? United.

So here's my question. I personally haven't had any issues with United. By the way, to Curative, that's an amazing concept. I think you guys are a disruptor. I'm not gonna go with you guys only because it's too new for me and I'm not willing to risk the employee's health benefits on something that's new and interesting and I'm just not sure about. I wish you all the best. I'm just very transparent. I'm not afraid to give people the truth. I've never had an issue with United. A lot of our employees have had issues with United because they come to me and they tell me. I don't know what they told

Thank you. I've tried to modify everything as much as possible. And once again, I want to thank all three companies for the professionalism and everything, the way they came to us and what they've done. So that to me is important. I've also sat with those two ladies over the phone over the weekend and in present. We analyzed everything on the disruptive side, with the studies that you did, which at the end of the day, I know it came a little late, but it was just because we were getting better offers and situations, which is part of your package, your 60 pages here. What I understood in the pa

So those benefits are the reason why I'm saying what I'm saying. And I'm going to be looking at something in the future, but I'm going to talk to you individually. There's another type of program out there that is I've asked Jody to give me some numbers and we're not going to get into it now because it's not fair that we don't have all the information, but it's separate and above something like the one that we just mentioned and is to deal with cancer. So we're going to look at that because right now I think the city with what we're just proposing and what we're looking at plus what we're givi

I would like if you give me the authority on that based on what comes in and what kind of rate they do for me to allow to move forward either with them which is a company that was here before, and it's just so you could get another angle, or we just go with United for Vision and Dental. So that's where I'm asking you, Mr. Mayor.

Commissioner Reynaldo Rey, yes, please. So one question, I heard something just to clear it up, because I've also had the same complaints and stuff like that, I've heard it as well. When I make a decision, I want to make sure that, let's say I do choose United, I don't get over it, I wanted to go back to AFMED. You explained something there, which is a key. Even if we do go back to AFMED, like you said, it's not the same AFMED they had two years ago.

Correct. It's not like if I'm here trying to make the, or we're trying to make the decision and saying, hey, you know what? We've heard complaints and they like to admit. If we get off, but again, it's not going to be the same app that they had before. Correct.

I'm trying to clear the air on that because then we make a decision and then you have others saying, oh, should have gone back. But if we still go back, it doesn't mean it's back to what we were. Correct. That year. Correct. Or those years, two years ago.

No. I only have one question to ask. If we're going to accept United, it's going to be the same plan, the last one, after they did all the discounts and deductibles and the flat fee for $200 for the employees. So that's what we're going to be voting on.

And I want to go with what we stated up here to the commission.

Okay. Can we, uh, can we specify which one is that one a one B one C one D that would be one C at a 2% increase. a two percent increase okay yes okay so just with all those benefits that we're targeting that's one seat that that'll be the one if i belong united it's one seat all right okay commissioner yes yeah i'm um you know i'm a little bit um

i wanted to get up in it that's going to be my vote right now uh based on the the decrease that we got and all the benefits that we got um now i know the mayor wants to get united and and this is just i mean i didn't have all this information that we got now i wish i would have it three or four days before i know i know but you know to make that decision because my decision right now was for amni um what will be the um the copay between you know tier one tier two three or three omit versus united to make a decision

Well, you have six tiers with United, and you have three with the other ones. So this is why she mentioned that they're different. So you don't know where one particular falls in one or another. So it's not fair to Admin or United that we sit here to try to compare it that way. So what we did is said this is a maximum L.A. in tier one, two, three. And the most important one was the one that the employees were complaining about, which was the one with the specialty drugs. And that one is a total of $50. Whether it's one type of drug or any type of specialty drug. Or it could be 30. Or it could

Now, that change, they just did it now, right? This change here, we just did it right now. This is why we wanted them to. Okay.

UNITED REPRESENTATIVE, PLEASE STAND UP TO THE PODIUM. PLEASE STATE YOUR NAME FOR THE RECORD.

To finish your question, I will set it up with them. Thank you, sir. I will set it up with them as soon as we move forward. God willing. And at that point, we'll have it. And if you can't, we could have it in a couple of sessions to make it easier for the whole city to be able to move around. From the PD to everybody else and make it happen.

You're on the floor, Commissioner Zaldeus. Thank you.

Jolly, on the medicines for the diabetics. is that how much that would be for an employee that they have to pay?

Stand by, Commissioner Yano. Commissioner Ian Biasio has grace of the Lord's presence. Go ahead, Commissioner.

All right, so my position on this is like, so i haven't had a bad experience with uh with that with sorry with united i like it i have it's been great been very straightforward i love the app by the way it's very easy to use and when i need to find a doctor on it it's great so what i do is i download a pdf of all the doctors that in the area of what i need i drop it in ai and i put in the parameters of what exactly and it tells me it ranks what are the best doctors for me so then i call from there so it makes it very streamlined so i like that um so and also i i also don't like this every year

Okay, and what would that look like in a monetary amount in that range? That's about $200,000. Okay, so that's a big increase then. We don't want to increase too much then.

Commissioner Yano, you want the floor? I want to make it abundantly clear, Commissioner Yano is my favorite. Go ahead.

No, no, I had a quick question about Colonial. Is Colonial going to be offered now when we start on the open enrollment?

I'm very familiar with Colonial. I had it for 25 years when I worked with the state. Okay. And I love the company. It's great. I know it works, and believe me, when you submit the papers and they pay you right away, there's no waiting time. So if anybody wants to do it, now is the time, October 1st, to get one of those covers, right?

Okay, I just want to make sure, so when I start, anybody who will be interested in can join. I will be enjoying for sure.

Commissioner Saldeas, you're on the floor.

No, I was just going by, excuse me, to answer your question, Commissioner. The thing is, I was just looking at the rate. If it's 5% and we have 2% and we went up to that much money, the 5% will put us somewhere along there. And I was just looking at Scott to see if I was correct. But you guys are the pros at that if you want to give them a fixed number now. Or we could work at that on the side.

Okay, there's other weight loss procedures that work really good, too. You know what's good? Jogging.

Let me ask you on the GLP-1, how much do they have to pay now with United?

How much they're used to doing the other payment that we have?

We're united. Because it falls under a different tier, that's why.

I'm telling you because that's what I'm paying. I have to do it because I'm diabetic type two, I have to use it every month. And I'm paying, they only give me once a month, but it's $25.

I have a question. Do rewards for the United carry over into the new plan?

No, you have to earn it every plan year. Every plan year, so you don't cash it out, you don't roll it over, all right. I'm gonna make a quick statement, then I'm gonna make a recommendation. I liked admin, I still like admin. But I feel like admin betrayed us. You don't put a face. You guys raised the rates 35%. That's why I feel like you guys betrayed us. If it wasn't for, in my opinion, these two ladies standing up here, specifically Yoli, if I'm not mistaken, to basically get us back into shape and make us more attractive to companies like admin and united and curative and blue when we beca

I decide already. Huh? No. I made my decision already.

You want to give them an opportunity? Yeah. Commissioner, just a quick straw vote. Commissioner Yana, would you like to give them two minutes? It's a yes or no. That's a no. Commissioner Isidro Ruiz? It's a no. No. Saul Diaz? Yes. Yes. Reynaldo Ray? Yes. Ian Baisio? Okay. Okay. So, yes. So, if you can, ladies, you can indulge us.

I don't think it puts them in a bad position. We're here to make informed decisions. Abmed, we'd like you guys to go first. You got two minutes. And by the way, if you want to go ahead and lower rates right now, I'm not going to say no. Say your name for the record.

Thank you very much. United step right up. The price is right.

Thank you very much. Thank you. I'd like to give, does any commission wish to speak before I say anything? No. No? I'd like to give the mayor the final word, but before that, Mr. Mayor, you're the leader of this city, you're the CEO of this city. You're not a normal mayor in most cities to those watching on TV. You have a city manager who's the administrator, and the city manager has staff upon staff upon staff. The mayor... is our mayor and our city manager. So he's gotta play the political hat and the administrative hat, and sometimes they don't jive. It's not an easy job to do. That office

Thank you, Mr. President. And I will tell you straight up, I think I said it earlier, we have looked at every the four corners of the document, per se, every angle that we could see. And we tried. And once again, I can't thank the companies enough. Each one of them stated very clearly by putting their money where their mouth is. So we thank you. Unfortunately, there's got to be one. And with that, the best benefits for the money and looking at situations that we might be facing in the future, I don't think that United will disappear. I think they really have proven it by doing what they've don

Mr. Mayor, I, um, I was coming into this meeting voting for Abbott. I'm very transparent. I don't, I'm not concerned with hurting people's feelings with the truth. If you get your feelings hurt with the truth, I don't know what to tell you. Um, after hearing everything, I'm going to be choosing United, not based on the mayor's recommendation, although that does carry a lot of weight. Definitely with the recommendation of our consultants with Brown and Brown and with Yoli. You know what's funny is we never refer to her company name. It's just her name, Yoli. That's funny. One word. That's funny

One quick question. Yoli, are we gonna have sort of like we had in the past? Like it was open enrollment where everybody was sitting face to face. I think I miss that a lot because we had the companies in front of us and we can ask anything like we had in the future. Are we gonna be able to have this time the same thing?

We used to have it face-to-face with the companies and they can explain to us.

Commissioner, invite a CO's motion for United. Do we have a second? Second. We have a second by Commissioner Saudia. No, no, not me. No. I'm sorry. Isidro Ruiz.

Roll call, Madam Clerk. Hold what you got. Commissioner Aldo Ray. Before, I know you said United. Make sure you say United alternate one seat. Yes.

Okay, so I amend my motion to United 1C.

United alternate 1C is the motion by Commissioner Baezio, second by Commissioner Isidro Ruiz, roll call, Madam Clerk. Commissioner Navarro. Yes. Commissioner Torres. Yes, thank you, United. Commissioner Diaz.

Yes. Yes. Congratulations, United. I want to thank Curative. I want to thank AVMED for being so aggressive. We really appreciate you guys coming out. But we've got to make the decisions best for our employees. So it is what it is. Thank you so much. Do we have a motion to adjourn? No. All in favor say aye. Aye.