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Portage Council approves one-year Blue Cross renewal, continues PA 152 exemption amid rising premiums
Summary
The Portage City Council approved a one-year renewal with Blue Cross Blue Shield, a four-year EyeMed vision renewal and continued an exemption from Public Act 152 for the 2026 plan year after members questioned steep, recent premium increases and limited market responses to the city's bid process.
The Portage City Council voted Nov. 5 to renew employee health coverage with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for one year, approve a multi-year vision contract with EyeMed for some employee groups, and continue the city's exemption from Public Act 152 for the 2026 medical benefits plan year.
Council members pressed staff for more detail about sharp premium increases. “Included in the detail here is last year, these costs went up 25%, and this year up 15%,” Council member Burns said during the discussion, noting that compounded increases approach roughly 50% over two years. City Manager Pat McGinnis told the council “the landscape with health care today is very volatile,” and that union contract language and market conditions constrained the city's options for lowering costs.
Human-resources staff told the council that other carriers either declined to quote (Priority Health) or did not respond (UnitedHealth) during the mandatory bid process, and that some firms decline business unless an entire municipality is under a single plan. Staff also said they have investigated pooling with other jurisdictions but cautioned that pooling typically means moving toward a self-insured model, which carries different risks and would require buy-in from the unions. “We're looking into that with our brokers for maybe future steps,” staff said.
Council debated how to distribute cost increases between the city and employees. McGinnis and HR staff said employees have already shifted to more affordable plan options and that some increases will be borne by employees through higher per-paycheck contributions; exact employee out-of-pocket figures vary by union group and plan selection. Council member Burns asked for sample per-paycheck costs; staff offered to provide detailed plan-option summaries to council members.
The motion before the council — to approve a one-year contract renewal with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, an estimated-cost renewal with EyeMed for certain vision coverage, to continue the PA 152 exemption for 2026, and to authorize the city manager to execute related documents — passed by unanimous roll call.
The council did not adopt a multi-jurisdictional pooling arrangement at this meeting; staff said they would continue exploring options with brokers and unions. The council requested additional written detail on plan options and employee cost impacts.
Next steps: the city manager is authorized to finalize the contracts and the clerk's office will make plan-option details available to council members and employees.
