Can a Mississippi county offer health insurance dependent coverage to some employees but not others?

Plain-English summary

Copiah County provides group health insurance to its full-time employees. The county's attorney asked the AG whether dependent coverage had to be offered to every eligible employee, or whether the county could limit dependent coverage to a particular group of employees. The 2019 Legislative Session had recently amended Miss. Code Ann. § 25-15-103(4)(b), and the Board of Supervisors wanted to know what flexibility it now had.

The AG read the amended statute as broadening county discretion. Section 25-15-103(4)(b) now provides:

A county may provide group life insurance coverage for all or specified groups of its public employees and group hospitalization benefits for such public employees and their dependents, and the county may pay the total of the cost of all benefits under this section. A county may make such provision, as specified under this paragraph, retroactively for any existing group coverage plan previously adopted by the county.

The "all or specified groups" language is the key. A county may carve up its employees and offer dependent coverage to one specified group while not offering it to others. The Board of Supervisors makes that determination in its discretion.

There is one important constraint. The AG drew on a 1994 opinion (Creekmore) that established the equal-treatment-within-group rule for municipal insurance: when a city offers dependent coverage to a specified group, all employees within that group must be treated the same way regarding the cost. By analogy, the same rule applies to counties. So a county can decide that, for example, road department employees get dependent coverage and clerical employees do not. But within road department employees, all must be treated the same on cost (county pays 100%, county pays 50%, etc.).

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 2020. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Background and statutory framework

Mississippi counties have authority to provide group insurance coverage for their employees under Miss. Code Ann. §§ 25-15-101 to 25-15-105 (the basic county-employee insurance authority) and through participation in the State and School Employees Health Insurance Plan. The county-specific authority is in § 25-15-103, which historically left some ambiguity about whether dependent coverage could be limited to specified groups.

The 2019 amendment to § 25-15-103(4)(b) tied off the ambiguity. The new language explicitly authorizes "all or specified groups" of public employees, and it allows the county to make provisions retroactive to existing plans. The retroactive piece is unusual, the legislature was telling counties they could clean up prior decisions about coverage scope without legal jeopardy.

The opinion's most important practical contribution is the equal-treatment-within-group rule, drawn from MS AG Op., Creekmore (November 2, 1994). Creekmore addressed municipal insurance and held that when a city provides dependent coverage, all employees within a specified group must be treated identically regarding the cost. The Munn opinion extends that principle to counties by analogy.

Under the rule the AG stated, the county's discretion runs to the choice between groups, while within any specified group all employees must be treated the same regarding the cost of dependent coverage. The line the AG drew falls between groups, not within them.

The AG's reasoning is straightforward: the statute authorizes coverage for "all or specified groups," which contemplates differentiated treatment between groups, while the equal-treatment principle traced from Creekmore requires that all employees within a specified group be treated the same regarding the cost of dependent coverage. The opinion does not define what counts as a "group"; it leaves the determination of whether to cover all employees or only specified groups to the Board's discretion.

Common questions

Q: Can the county offer dependent coverage to some employee groups but not others?
A: Yes. The amended § 25-15-103(4)(b) authorizes coverage for "all or specified groups" of public employees, and the AG said it is within the Board's discretion to decide whether dependents of all employees or only specified groups will be covered.

Q: Can the county exclude particular individuals from coverage even within a covered group?
A: That would conflict with the equal-treatment-within-group principle the AG drew from Creekmore: all employees within a specified group must be treated the same regarding the cost of dependent coverage.

Q: Does the retroactive provision really let the county apply coverage to an existing plan?
A: The 2019 amendment allows a county to make the provision "retroactively for any existing group coverage plan previously adopted by the county." The opinion did not address how that interacts with any other legal requirements.

Q: Does this analysis apply to municipalities too?
A: The opinion uses the Creekmore municipal precedent and extends it by analogy to counties. The same equal-treatment-within-group principle applies in both contexts. The statutory authority differs (different code sections govern county and municipal employee coverage).

Citations and references

Statutes:

• Miss. Code Ann. § 25-15-101 (County employee group insurance authority)
• Miss. Code Ann. § 25-15-103 (Group insurance coverage for county employees)
• Miss. Code Ann. § 25-15-103(4)(b) (2019 amendment authorizing all-or-specified-groups coverage)

Prior AG opinions:

• MS AG Op., Creekmore (November 2, 1994) (Equal-treatment-within-group for municipal coverage)

Source

• Landing page: https://attorneygenerallynnfitch.com/divisions/opinions-and-policy/recent-opinions/
• Original PDF: https://attorneygenerallynnfitch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/E.Munn_January-31-2020-Group-Insurance-Coverage-for-County-Employee-and-Dependents.pdf

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain, the linked PDF is authoritative.

ATTORNEY GENERAL
OPINIONS DIVISION

January 31, 2020

Elise B. Munn, Esquire
Attorney, Copiah County Board of Supervisors
Post Office Drawer 768
Hazlehurst, Mississippi 39083

Re: Group Insurance Coverage for County Employee and Dependents

Dear Ms. Munn:

Attorney General Lynn Fitch is in receipt of your opinion request and has assigned it to me for research and response. In your letter, you explain that Copiah County is currently providing group health insurance for its eligible full-time employees. You inquire whether it is necessary to offer dependent coverage to all employees pursuant to Section 25-15-103(4)(b) of the Mississippi Code Annotated or whether the county can provide dependent coverage to a specified group of employees.

In response, Section 25-15-103 was amended in the 2019 Legislative Session and now provides the below additional language:

(4)(b) A county may provide group life insurance coverage for all or specified groups of its public employees and group hospitalization benefits for such public employees and their dependents, and the county may pay the total of the cost of all benefits under this section. A county may make such provision, as specified under this paragraph, retroactively for any existing group coverage plan previously adopted by the county.

(Emphasis added). It is our opinion that, pursuant to Section 25-15-101 and Section 25-15-103, the board of supervisors may lawfully provide group life insurance coverage for all or specified groups of its public employees and group hospitalization benefits for such public employees and their dependents, and the county may pay the total of the cost of all benefits under this section. It is within the discretion of the Copiah County Board of Supervisors to determine whether dependents of all employees or only specified groups of employees will be provided such coverage.

Please note that our office has previously opined that when the governing authorities of a municipality elect to provide group health insurance for their employees and dependents that all employees within a specified group be treated in the same manner regarding the payment of the cost of said dependent coverage. MS AG Op., Creekmore (November 2, 1994). Thus, by analogy, we now opine the same should apply to the governing authorities of a county when electing to provide group health insurance for their employees and dependents within a specified group.

If this office may be of any further assistance to you, please let us know.

Sincerely,

LYNN FITCH, ATTORNEY GENERAL

By: Avery Mounger Lee
Special Assistant Attorney General