Adams County may be poised to do what the entire country has been trying to do — lower health care costs while retaining good coverage.

The county’s approach has been two-fold.

First the county opted to self-fund their employee healthcare costs rather than purchasing insurance. Doing so, county leaders said this week, should save approximately $200,000 over the prior year.

If, by the end of the fiscal year, the projected savings were realized, the savings would equate to an approximate 10-percent reduction in costs.

That is impressive, given that most businesses are seeing heath insurance premium increases, not decreases.

We urge City of Natchez leaders to consider discussing the county’s plan and, if it makes financial sense to do so, seek to join together to make the risk pool even larger and thus safer from catastrophe.

The county’s second plan to lower costs has been to hire its own nurse practitioner to provide basic medical care for county inmates. Previously those services were contracted out, at a higher cost than hiring an employee directly.

The added benefit of the hire has been to provide front-line care for county employees. Employees can visit the county’s nurse practitioner for free rather than paying a co-payment to another medical provider, thus saving the employee and the county money.

Those are smart changes in county government that appear to be having a positive impact on taxpayers’ hard earned cash.