Remarks by Bob Ellis
208 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 9
- Play at 2:48:44
“The pick in terms of the price increase. This is partly a choice by us that's informed by both claims experience as well as our cost of administration. that we pay to the providers, correct? It's those two components.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:49:19
“I got that right. Right, okay, okay. And that's gonna be my follow-up question is, within that 122, how much of that's to Anthem? in Humana and et cetera, right, Kaiser? Kaiser, yes, sir. And what portion of that is attributable to administration and what portion of that's attributable to payout to providers, et cetera? You understand what I'm saying?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:49:55
“The claims. For the claims, right? Yeah, Anthem side versus Kaiser side. So administration versus claims, right? Yes, we can get that data. So claims expense versus other. So how difficult would it be to apportion that out and provide that?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:50:16
“They might have it together after lunch?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:50:24
“Is that a yes? That's a yes. Okay, I'm gonna propose a motion to hold on this so we can come back and potentially get that information.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 3:07:14
“Yeah, I'm glad Commissioner Harrington raised that piece about the 600,000 or whatever. I mean, there should be some discussion of potentially that just gets rolled into a reduction of premiums. So anyway, I'll leave it. But here's what I'm looking for when we come back. I'm looking for what's the dollar adjustment that would be required for the Anthem plans as a whole to have no more than the other average increases that we're seeing, let's say on the Kaiser side, let's say 9.7%, whatever the number was.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 3:08:01
“Quantify that number. We can do that. And what that looks like on both, and have some discussions about, you know, some sharing in that, what that, you know, how we might get to that number.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 3:08:24
“I'm not talking about sharing between us and the participant. I'm talking about between us and Anthem. I got you. That's what I'm talking about. So if you could have a little bit of discussion on that, come back with some numbers. Y'all can give us a high sign when you're ready to talk about it. But that's what I'm interested in hearing.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:24:22
“I just want to sum up this. So our benchmark is 200 net new hires. That's what we established up front. That's what the plan was built on, right?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:24:32
“And as of September 14, 2026, we are at 33% of that goal.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:41:31
“Can we take care of the millage rate before we get to that? What? Will we be able to take care of the millage rate before we get to that? I know all this is important, but there's one other one that's been waiting longer than that.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:41:45
“Where is it? That's right. 594. We got two before that. It's right after this. Okay.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:52:35
“Yeah, I would comment just on the calendar. I would just, I personally like to see us stick to the original one and get it done. And hopefully some of the other jurisdictions will move ahead and get theirs done and we'll all be able to do it sooner.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:52:53
“Final public hearing and approval on the 7th.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:52:58
“That would be my personal preference. I mean, you know, we're already behind. Let's get it done. Give people certainty, at least on our portions. The long report is no later than the second meeting in January. Is that right? I guess so. This is about the millage rate. Right. That would be my personal view, that we just go ahead and proceed down the original path. If it doesn't work out, that all the bills can go out, whatever, so be it. We got our portion done and we don't run into any sort of other unforeseen consequences or other issues that we hadn't contemplated. Lord knows this thing's…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:54:34
“So at this point in time last year, you would have given us a number of 51.4, probably, right?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:54:51
“So anyway, but just my point asking it is, Overall, the net digest growth is 4.59%, right? Depending upon that number or whatever it is, if it's 54.4, that growth in the tax allocation district's like 25%?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:55:12
“So just to note, these are where a lot of these You know, commercial properties where people were bringing up, data centers, et cetera, were in these jurisdictions, in these tax allocation districts, plus other stuff that's going on. So I just think that's worth calling out. Certainly note the difference. Had that money, it would certainly help with a health increase. All right. Commissioner Barrett.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:57:04
“All right. Commissioner Ellis. If I'm wrong, but you did provide this in a memo to us.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:57:15
“Right, so the mid-year information is we do have it in this.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:58:52
“Add to 8.87. Add to 8.87. And then schedule to proceed as originally noted. What are we authorizing in terms of the schedule?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 6:19:07
“Personally, I'm prepared to act today on limiting something to a 10% premium increase. I am prepared to act today with a limitation to a 10% increase on these Anthem self-insured plans with the following caveats. that we do this RFP that we're talking about post-haste relative to these providers that are gonna come in and look at ways to bring our prescription costs down and deal with these high-cost claims. With the idea that we're gonna find this $4.6 million through that process. Okay, that becomes a goal, not some sort of abstract idea. And it gets us post haste into going down this path.…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 6:20:29
“Okay. When will we have, when could we get that information? We have a commitment from Anthem, when you can get a response on that?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 6:20:46
“Number four is a response from Anthem regarding how soon that they could confirm what type of potential discount they could provide on the incurred negotiated claims, basically their administrative costs.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 6:21:16
“Excellent, what is that? And then, the narrowing of network options and all that sort of stuff, that's gonna take a little bit of time to frame that out and then quantify what an impact was, so we might not have that. And then, but that could be done during the course of a plan year, those changes could be made, correct? Okay, and then, I'm not sure I understand the last one,”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026