Remarks by Jose "Pepe" Diaz
32 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
- Play at 11:24
“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…”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 18:04
“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?”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 18:47
“For $500 out of pocket. Correct. And that is built out or every incident?”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 18:58
“Which is $3,500. $3,500. Okay. Sorry, I just wanted to get that clear.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 20:53
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 21:06
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 32:35
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 33:32
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 33:54
“Would it be more than that? No. Would it be the 50% coinsurance?”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 33:57
“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?”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 34:06
“Correct. That would be the best scenario.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 34:11
“Okay. Would that be the same on both sides of the program?”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 34:20
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 35:36
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 35:49
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 37:26
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 37:44
“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?”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 41:38
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 44:04
“Oh, she was actually thinking when I looked at her.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 48:55
“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…”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 53:10
“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…”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 54:26
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 57:08
“And I want to go with what we stated up here to the commission.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 58:38
“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…”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026
- Play at 1:01:20
“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.”
City Commission · Aug 31, 2026