COEUR d'ALENE - Responding to employee complaints, the Kootenai County commissioners are offering a revised proposal for significant changes to health care benefits.

The new proposed plan, which the commissioners released to other county officials this week, wouldn't raise deductibles as high as they had suggested in a proposal last month.

It would also drop the Health Reimbursement Account the commissioners had suggested to help with out-of-pocket expenses.

The tweaks are aimed at addressing employees' concerns over the commissioners' first proposal, which were expressed in letters and emails from several departments.

"We've sent it out to the electeds, and we're going to get their comments," said Commissioner Todd Tondee of the new plan. "If their comments come back favorable, that's the change we'll make."

Any new benefits package will still require the county's 700-plus employees to pay more, warned Commissioner Dan Green during Tuesday night's budget hearing, in order to spread out higher insurance costs.

He repeated the commissioners' chief point that the county has shouldered most of those increases in past years.

"I wish some of those costs had been shared along the way," Green said. "So maybe the changes we proposed would not be so drastic."

If adopted, the new plan would lower deductibles by scrapping the previously proposed HRA, which would have provided employees with $350 for out-of-pocket medical, dental and vision expenses.

"It takes that money to lower their deductibles," Green explained.

Under the new proposal, deductibles would only increase from $400/$800 (individual/family) to $1,000/$2,000, which employees can half by participating in a wellness program.

While still a jump, that's lower than the commissioners' proposal from last month, which would raise deductibles to $1,500/$3,000.

The new plan would also lower employees' out-of pocket costs from $2,400/$4,800 to $2,000/$4,000.

Under the initial proposal, those costs would jump to $5,000/$10,000.

Employee contributions would also change under the new proposal:

* A single employee would pay $38.50, up from the current $37.50

* A married employee would contribute $128.48, from $105

* A worker with one child would pay $83.65, down from $105

* Employees with multiple children would contribute $105.74, dropped from $180.

* Those with a larger family would pay $220, instead of $180.

Some of these are higher, and others lower, than in the first proposal.

Clerk Cliff Hayes said the commissioners' new proposal is an improvement, and will have a softer impact on employees than the initially suggested changes.

"The thing that surprised the employees was the short notice and the large change," he said of the first proposal.

Hayes had recommended the commissioners dig into the health care fund balance to cover increased insurance costs, he added, so employees wouldn't have to pay more.

But that would only work for a year, he acknowledged.

"We would have used almost $500,000, and then perhaps would have had to take an increase next year," Hayes said.

The county's self-funded insurance is not tallied in its total fiscal budget.

Tondee said he thinks employees would benefit more from the first proposal.

"The difference is the HRA went to the employees whether they used the benefits or not," he said. "If they were sick or didn't use the benefits at all, they would still get that money."

But he noted that the first plan would cost employees more.

"It's just a difference of philosophy and comfort level," Tondee said.