DART Vice President of Diversity Michael Mohammed
A vote late this afternoon on partner health benefits by the DART board continues discussion until the next committee meeting.
The DART board met behind closed doors for more than half an hour to discuss the health plan before opening the meeting to visitors. The plan they were discussing was approved by the administrative committee earlier this month.
The plan under consideration is comparable to those adopted by the city of Dallas, DFW Airport, Austin and El Paso.
One motion to table discussion until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the California Proposition 8 case was defeated by a 7-6 vote that largely pitted Dallas delegates against the suburbs.
But because there were questions about the actual cost of claims, not just premiums, the board decided to continue discussion to the next meeting instead of passing the proposal for its second vote to the next committee-of-the-whole. From approval of the committee-of-the-whole, the proposal then goes to the board on a later date for approval.
Michael Mohammed, DART vice president for diversity, gave the committee estimated premium costs for the plan that will range from $60,748 to $734,849. But he didn’t have a figure on the cost of claims. DART, like many large corporations, is self-insured. Board members said they were only asking actuarial questions.
If a dependent contracted cancer, how much would that cost DART, one board member asked.
But premiums are determined actuarially to cover claims. So if the premium is figured correctly, the cost of the new participants would be covered.
Instead, the discussion will continue at the next meeting on March 5. At that meeting, the proposal could be sent to the committee-of-the-whole for second approval and then to the full board for final approval in April.