Reprinted from Deadline Hollywood by David Robb on August 26, 2020.
SAG-AFTRA Health Plan CEO Michael Estrada on Tuesday described the “perfect storm” of soaring health care costs, employer contributions to the plan that have failed to keep up with those costs, and the devastating impact of the coronavirus shutdown on those contributions that made a complete overhaul necessary to keep the plan from going broke by 2024.
Changes to the plan, which include increased eligibility thresholds for many, and higher premiums for all, will go into effect on January 1, 2021, and are projected to put the deficit-plagued plan back in the black by 2022. Actuaries estimate that under the changes, the plan will run a surplus of $26 million that year, and a $53 million surplus in 2023. That money will be used to refill the plans’ depleted reserves, which have plummeted 20% – or about $100 million – from a high of $500 million three years ago.
Rescuing the plan doesn’t come without a cost, however. As previously reported, about 10% of its 33,000 participants and 9% of their 32,000 dependents are expected to lose coverage as a result of the changes. …
