The Office of the New York City Comptroller approved the NYC Employees PPO plan, according to a Nov. 14 news release.
Under the new health plan, EmblemHealth and UnitedHealthcare will take over the contract from GHI Comprehensive Business Plan, under EmblemHealth, and Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Elevance Health. The NYC Office of Labor Relations expects to reap $900 million in savings resulting from provider discounts and plan management.
Elevance has been battling the new contract — but mostly out of the public eye. City employees, retirees and advocates also filed a lawsuit, expressing concerns over the plan’s “administrative services only” model.
“In this case, the parties filed a lawsuit petitioning for a temporary restraining order to prevent the City from being able to replace the GHI plan with the self-insured NYCE PPO; the judge denied that request on Thursday, Nov. 6, and allowed the City to proceed with the procurement,” the comptroller’s office said.
The comptroller approves contracts based only on whether “all procedural requisites for the procurement process were met,” not on the contract’s substance.
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