Remarks by Bridget Thorne
112 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 5
- Play at 2:50:52
“okay um i concur with a lot of my colleagues i feel like i don't have a choice but to rubber stamp as well um so but given that you were going to suggest that we raise the deductible for the pos what is the current deductible for the hsa plan for anthem”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:51:35
“Okay, and then what's the maximum for the HSA out-of-pocket maximum?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:52:17
“So if we raise it from 2,000, I mean, if we raise it to 4,000, if you do the raise from 2 to 4 to 3 to 6 to 4 to 8 for families, will that still keep the POS as the lower plan? Because most people do the HSA because you have that health savings account, and if you raise that, that's significantly high, the POS, won't it be comparable, or getting close to comparable, there won't be much differentiation?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:53:10
“Okay. Okay. Then I had a question, too. If you go back to, or it was mentioned that 2.3% of our employees have 51% of our spend. And that there is a stop loss at $300,000 that we could implement.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:54:29
“Okay, okay. It just seems like there should be some kind of legislation in because to have 2.3% of your population driving a majority of your healthcare costs, it just seems like there would be some other plan, high catastrophic or something that you could put them on. I don't know, I'm not an expert, you're the expert in this, but is there something legislatively we should be urging to get done or advocate for?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:56:43
“I'm sorry, you said you did the RFPE two years ago. We did it in 2024. I remember that.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:57:02
“And then if I remember correctly, it was mentioned that Kaiser hasn't gone up significant, but they did go up 9.6%. But if I remember correctly, last year they had a significant increase in their rate.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 2:57:32
“Okay, but we... we can support this increase. We weren't able to get it down.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 3:00:07
“I also agree with Commissioner Barrett and her concerns with the private equity, just bringing awareness. I don't know if we should do an awareness campaign. I mean, not only is it driving up our costs, but I think maybe one of my doctors is in those groups, and now something that would take one visit is taking multiple visits. And that way they can charge me the fees for coming back for another visit. when they could do the blood work for everything all at once. Instead, I'm having to go to the doctor three times just for, and I'm a healthy person. I have just go for health checks. So I…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:35:58
“Yes. I just have a quick question. In the automated text reminders, Is there an ability that people could subscribe on their own to those reminders? Because I know people who post bond for people, you know, they would like to be reminded so that they can ensure that that person gets there for their appearance. And you know, considering that a lot of these people may have mental health issues or other issues, it might be good if people can, other people can get these text reminders, especially too, since, you know, appearance dates might change last minute or the court's closed or something…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:37:25
“And I imagine when it comes to using AI, which Commissioner Arrington, I'm fully behind you on AI usage, that it is a new tool and we must be using it. But we don't have official policy yet. So I'd hate for in our court system for AI to be pulling from databases that shouldn't be released. We need to have some kind of policy in place if we're using AI. especially in the court system.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:38:15
“Sometimes it's hard to exclude it. from certain, pooling from certain areas, so you need a closed AI system. And I don't know if we have that, if Tyler's able to provide that, but you don't want it pooling from some database outside of Fulton County.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:38:58
“If it's just merging a simple, if it's just merging a simple database into the system, it should be straightforward if Tyler can provide it. Just a couple lines of code to pull it into that text system.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:57:47
“Yes, I have a question. So you're saying that you don't want to adopt the rollback rate because you think we'll need the additional $2 million moving forward based on mid-year review. Is that correct, Madam CFO?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:59:24
“Could I make one additional comment? Yes.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 5:59:29
“Okay, so in the event that we do, if this passes and we hold a flat millage rate, there's been so much confusion about the TCO, the due dates, all of that. I just think this would be less confusion by just holding it flat versus having to send out another bill collection or anything like that because it's been such a failure not having the digest in a timely manner. And I think the earlier we kind of finalize it and said it will set an example for the other taxing jurisdictions to go ahead and get theirs settled as well. to prevent and clear up all this. And I don't know when the due dates…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 6:01:25
“Yes, so basically people would be paying their tax bill, their 2026 tax bill in 2027.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 6:42:21
“When you say, You know, equate to a projected $4.6 million in claims cost exposure. How close have your projections been in previous years? Or do you have that information?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 6:42:51
“And I'm also in agreement. I don't want to limit the plans. I think people who are on the POS plan, probably it's more expensive because they get that plan because they know they're going to have to visit the doctor quite often. So that's kind of a group of people that would gravitate toward that plan. And I'd like to keep the option open to them. Um, they may, They mentioned, Anthem mentioned they had 600,000 left over from last year. Maybe they could just put that towards our budget. I'm also aware of a meeting that the county has had with one of these third-party vendors that claims they…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 6:45:02
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 7:13:36
“That's okay. Yeah, I think that resolution that Commissioner Barrett kind of referenced was in regards to the significant huge fertilizer crunch in 2021 and 2022, where USDA says, fertilizer prices were rising in 2021 because of the covid air supply chain problems and then that combined with the really high natural gas prices production constraints in china's fertilizer export restrictions and then in 2022 we went to war with ukraine which even severely caused a severe shortage so i was kind of interested in that resolution that was passed back then and it We just need to move forward with…”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 1:42:01
“Thank you for that. I was going to mention that I don't believe in the consent decree that it was an urgent need that needed to be addressed, correct?”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 1:42:12
“And that we had lots of urgent needs that we were having to prioritize at the time, and now we can go back and get to the elevator project again.”
Board of Commissioners · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 1:42:24
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Board of Commissioners · Sep 2, 2026
- Play at 1:43:55
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Board of Commissioners · Sep 2, 2026