Health Plan Announces Changes Effective January 1, 2025 to Address Ongoing Headwinds and Ensure Long-Term Financial Stability
Why the Changes?
Since 2020, the Health Plan has successfully navigated a global pandemic and the 2023 dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Despite having to tap into its reserves in both 2020 and 2023, the Health Plan was able to continue its support of DGA members and their families impacted during these two unprecedented and challenging times by providing nine months of free coverage to participants from July 2020 to March 2021 and 15 months of free coverage from October 2023 through December 2024. In 2023, the Health Plan paid nearly 160,000 claims totaling more than $162 million.
The Plan’s continued stability was made possible by the Board of Trustees’ careful, long-term planning over the past two decades that prepared the Health Plan to weather such challenges – both known and unknown – and the DGA successfully negotiating increased contribution rates for both the Pension and Health Plans.
However, the Health Plan still faces the ongoing headwinds of continuing healthcare inflation, including double digit inflation projected for 2025, a low eligibility threshold and a growing retiree population.
Recently, the Board of Trustees approved the changes detailed in this article to address these headwinds and to ensure the Health Plan’s continued ability to provide you and your families with the highest level of benefits possible, most of which exceed, and in some cases far exceed, other plans in the industry.
