Employees can now choose a "plus plan" for their health insurance, which features a health savings account and a higher deductible than the existing "basic plan".

"The main thing about the plus insurance is that you're going to have to do a lot of self-maintenance, self-planning," said Susan McClintic, Benton Elementary School teacher and President of the Columbia, Missouri National Education Association. "It's the same insurance, the same benefits, with a different deductible, and then an IRS opportunity for some pre-tax dollars to go into that and manage that account."

McClintic also sits on the Columbia Public Schools Employee Benefits Committee which decided to offer the new health-insurance option to combat rising insurance costs.

"It's a huge cost and we were looking at ways of offering employees the same opportunities of benefits but where they're going to have to take on a little bit more of a risk to get a better deal."

Under the new "plus plan", an employee's deductible would increase from $500 to $1200, but would pay 100 percent of the coinsurance costs if the employee stays within his or her network.

"You can roll that higher deductible into a checking account, called a health savings account," McClintic said. "With a health savings account, you can maintain (your costs) truly like a savings account and then accumulate that and use it post retirement to pay your medical concerns that way."

The employee benefits committee gave Columbia Public School Employees a power point presentation outlining the specifics of each insurance plan. The power point also included worksheets to help employees determine what insurance plan is best for them and their dependents. For example, employees can plug in their anticipated medical costs for the upcoming year into the online worksheet and compare what the costs would be using each plan.

"You can pull out your own expenses, you can look and see what your history has been and put it into that program and it will compare it to the basic plan we have and the plus plan to see which will be the best choice for you to do," McClintic said.

Benton Elementary Preschool teacher Christine Beck said she will stick with the basic insurance plan because her medical costs are low.

"For our purposes, we really don't have a lot of expenses out of pocket, so our expenses usually fall into the allowable amount," Beck said. "We just don't go to the doctor or have lots of prescriptions or any other severe medical bills like that like maybe somebody who would benefit from the health savings account would want to choose that."

Beck doesn't have any problem with the insurance policy the district has had in the past.

"I think it covers quite a bit, at least for my sake," she said. "We don't use a lot of medical expenses but I think it covers a lot of the basic needs that I have, so I think it's a good program."

The deadline for Columbia school district employees to sign up for the new plus plan is Nov. 30.