NATCHEZ — The City of Natchez Tuesday essentially decided to retain its health insurance provider, LS & Associates.

The board of aldermen voted 4-2 against a motion to take requests for proposals (RFPs) from other providers, with only Ward 3 Alderwoman Sarah Smith and Ward 5 Alderman Benjamin Davis favoring the motion.

Les Smith, head of LS & Associates, made his case for renewal in a presentation to the board at Tuesday’s special call meeting in the Council Chambers.

Les Smith said under this coverage, employees would face a maximum cost of $1,000 individually and $2,000 per family. Les Smith said anything above those figures would be completely covered by the insurance company without limit.

Les Smith also said employees could opt to pay $12 per month to essentially “buy down” their deductible from $1,000 to $500.

“I don’t know how it gets any better than that,” Les Smith said. “I doubt there’s anyone in Natchez that has a program that’s as efficient or as good as that program is.”

He also suggested that the city should switch administrators of the program, recommending a change from Medova Healthcare to Covenant Healthcare, which he claimed would save the city money and provide better benefits to employees.

Medova President Dan Whitney participated in the meeting via telephone. Some confusion arose when Les Smith said the aldermen had not received all the necessary claims reports to make an informed decision. Les Smith and Whitney agreed to speak today to resolve the situation.

After Whitney hung up, Les Smith furthered his case for switching administrators by saying he has had reoccurring issues with Medova.

“I’ve been in the business 42 years, and I have no carrier that gives me that kind of trouble getting claims (reports),” Les Smith said.

Les Smith also claimed that switching to Covenant would save the city slightly more than $30,000 annually in expenses.

Sarah Smith — though she noted LS & Associates might well be making the best offer — lamented the board’s decision to not consider other proposals. Sarah Smith said she could not comprehend why the city would vote to accept RFPs to ensure they are getting the best deal on waste collection — which the board also did in Tuesday’s meeting — but not health insurance.

“I think the taxpayers and probably our employees would be interested (in this) — I don’t understand why we would want to get the best proposal for waste, but we would to be able to look at more proposals for health insurance,” she said.

About a year ago, Sarah Smith said the city had an opportunity to save at least $200,000 by switching providers to Blue Cross Blue Shield, though the board decided to stick with LS & Associates in that instance as well.

Natchez Water Works Superintendent Tony Moon also spoke briefly at the meeting. Water Works is also covered by LS & Associates.

Moon said “90 percent” of the issues experienced by his department’s employees relate to insurance coding, which he said is “horrible” under the current system.

Moon went on to say that LS & Associates has worked well with Water Works to “track down and solve these problems.”

Though Moon had to leave the meeting before a vote was taken, Moon said he looked forward to seeing other RFPs.

“It’s about competition. We’d like to see some RFPs. If somebody can beat it, we’d love to see it,” Moon said.

Les Smith said he believed the board stuck with his company because they were pleased with their coverage from the past two years.

“I think that’s why the board said, ‘Look, we’ve got a plan that’s working — why change it?,’” he said.