Federal employees will be one step closer to a new health insurance coverage option under a proposed rule the Office of Personnel Management plans to issue Dec. 3.
The “self plus one” health plan will be available beginning in 2016, according to the proposed rule. The plan will cover the federal employee or retiree and one eligible family member designated by the plan holder.
Currently, FEHBP enrollees can only sign up for self-only or family health plans. This means that federal employees who are married without children, or who are single parents of just one child, have to sign up for more expensive family plans.
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Federal employees will still be able to decrease or increase their enrollment type from one option to another during the open season or outside of open season in the case of a qualifying event such as a death or birth in the family, according to OPM.
OPM predicts that current enrollees with family coverage who have only one dependent will see a decrease in premium costs by switching to self plus one while those with more dependents will have higher premiums.
The government would still share costs of federal employee and retiree plans using the same formula now, and OPM expects that the various increases and decreases in plan costs will cancel each other out, according to the proposed rule.
