County will drop some retired workers from health insurance plan

County will drop some retired workers from health insurance plan

Switch in providers necessitates move

news@theeveningtimes.com

Crittenden County will be sending out letters to a handful of retired employees informing them that they will no longer be eligible to be on the county’s health care plan.

Representatives from the county’s insurance carrier, L.S. & Associates Insurance, told the Quorum Court that they need to better define their retiree coverage because it can have an adverse effect on its renewal costs. “We really want to try and get some specific language going with the retiree policy for next year,” said Michelle Gill, executive director of L.S. & Associates Insurance. “Being with a new carrier, I would like to get it set up and be clean and worded right — not only for the retirees — but also to protect the county and their employees.”

Gill said currently the county’s personnel policy is vague about who can be enrolled in their health care coverage.

“It looks like anybody who is a retiree can keep the coverage indefinitely as long as they can pay for it,” Gill said. “That poses several problems.”

The county recently changed its coverage from Blue Cross and Blue Shield to UnitedHealthcare. The move to a new insurance carrier will save the county $126,000 a year and provide significantly lower deductibles for county employees.

LS & H Associates is new to Arkansas, but currently cover employees in Jackson, Lawrence, and Clay counties.

Gill said allowing retirees to stay on the county’s insurance long-term causes a large loss ratio on their claims.

“That adversely effects your renewal terms,” Gill said. “It effects your employee’s dependent’s costs.

Every time that number goes up, that is what our office is trying to contain. We need to put long-term plans in to place that will help control those costs throughout the year. And part of controlling those costs is trying to define that retiree coverage.”

Gill told justices that in her experience it is very difficult to contain costs when they have retirees over the age of 65 on their insurance plan.

“One, it’s not good for the county’s insurance rates,” Gill said. “Two, it’s not good for the retiree. If they ever came off of the coverage and got on some Medicare supplement and got on to a Part D drug plan, they would have a penalty attached because they did not elect it within their entitlement period. So if you are actively working and you are 70 years old and you have county insurance, you’re okay. Whenever you decide to leave the county and go on Medicare and get your insurance, you have a six month window to do so after you leave the county and you don’t get the penalty. But if you retire and you are not actively working, and you go longer than six months, its cost going to cost you that penalty for ever month that you haven’t. The retirees are probably unaware of it.”

Gill suggested the county change the language to say that once an employee is a retiree that they can continue to pay 100 percent of the premium until they obtain other coverage or upon reaching the age where they are Medicare eligible.

“With the individual health care plans now there are no pre-existing conditions,” Gill said. “That used to be a big factor in why county government had retiree coverage. They didn’t want to kick people off and then they have a medical condition after serving the county for 20 years and not have insurance. Now, that is not in effect. There are no pre-existing conditions wherever you go for insurance. So if they come off a county plan they can go United Health Care or Blue Cross of Arkansas and one of those and not have to worry about pre-existing conditions posing a problem.”

County Judge Woody Wheeless said the county has six retirees still on the county’s health care plan.

Wheeless and County Attorney Joe Rogers researched the county’s personnel policy and ordinances back to 1994 and did not find anything that even allows retirees to be eligible to stay on the county’s health care plan.

“It says nothing about retirees,”

Wheeless said. “We

don’t have anything that says you have to work here 20 years or five. It (personnel policy) says who is eligible (for insurance). But it doesn’t say anything about retired employees.”

“We’ve just been keeping some people on the plan because whoever has been in charge of this didn’t know that only current employees are supposed to be eligible,” Rogers added.

Justice Vickie Robertson said the county definitely needs to explain Medicare and a supplemental policy to employees.

“It’s going to be cheaper for them,” Robertson said.

“A lot cheaper,” Gill added.

The quorum court directed Wheeless to send letters out to those six employees informing them that they do not qualify for county insurance, but to give them enough time to obtain coverage.

“Joe has already drafted a letter for me to send out,” Wheeless said.

By Mark Randall