City, Unions Nearing Health-Care-Savings Goal 2 Years Early

The de Blasio administration will introduce changes to city employees’ health-insurance plans that will lower co-pays for preventive-care services while raising them for more-expensive ones such as emergency-room visits, city officials said while disclosing that unions have helped produce nearly all of a required $3.4 billion in health-care savings two years ahead of schedule.

The changes, which will begin July 1, were detailed by Labor Commissioner Robert W. Linn at a Feb. 26 hearing of the City Council’s Finance and Civil Service and Labor Committees. He said the modifications arose from an analysis of city workers’ insurance claims and were key parts of having already secured $3.1 billion of its four-year goal to save $3.4 billion on health-care spending through 2018.