BATON ROUGE — Mayor-President Sid Edwards brought a new proposed health insurance plan for city-parish employees back before the Metro Council after the vote was deferred during the previous regular council meeting.

The latest proposal included around a 20% increase in premium costs.

"We don't want to do anything to take money out of our employees' pockets, but we also got to be fiscally responsible and make sure they get the Cadillac health care that we do provide, and sometimes it's hard to put all that together," Edwards said.

Several employees and union leaders spoke out against the rate hikes.

Jake Morgan, president of the Baton Rouge Firefighters Association, asked the council to reduce the premium increase to 10% or 15%.

Councilman Aaron Moak made a motion to reduce the increase to 15%, which the council approved.

"We're very thankful for the additional decrease. I think all parish employees would feel the same way; Fire spoke up tonight, but I feel like we represented all employees for city-parish tonight," Morgan said.

According to the mayor's office, the two new medical plans, Community Blue Health Management Organization and Precision Blue HMO, will not cost employees additional money, but they will have more limited provider networks.

"If you choose the two narrow networks, you're actually saving money; there is one you save 25%," Edwards said.

If employees were to keep their current HMO or point of service plan, they would see a 15% increase; those with a high-deductible health plan will see roughly a 25% jump.

Reducing the overall rate increase leaves the city-parish responsible for approximately $700,000 in additional costs.

"We, as a council, felt like we could absorb that and realize some cost savings; it is going to mean some departmental cuts, some departmental efficiencies, and so now we'll go in turn and see what that looks like," East Baton Rouge Metro Councilman Rowdy Gaudet said.

The new health insurance plans take effect Jan. 1.