Letters: Teacher insurance change is unfair

First, I would like to thank The Advocate and staff reporter Charles Lussier for accurate reporting on the meetings held to discuss this issue. I am a retired teacher from the East Baton Rouge Parish school system with 30 years of service.

For the following reasons, I oppose the proposed change in retiree health insurance:

1) The proposed change is a breach of the commitment made by the school system to Medicare-eligible retires. Since I retired, the school system has provided health benefits to me as promised during my employment.

I counted on receiving this benefit as well as the monthly retirement benefits I receive from the state. I spent my professional life teaching children rather than seeking more-lucrative employment.

Mercer Human Resources Consulting, which presented the proposed change, has admitted in its own documents that the change seeks to lower the insurance cost for active teachers and non-Medicare retirees by $8.7 million.

This carve-out of Medicare-eligible retires under the proposal is both unfair and inequitable. What’s the distinction between the Medicare eligible retirees and non-Medicare retirees which justifies different treatment under this proposal? Just because my deceased husband worked and paid into Social Security is not a fair basis to penalize me as a Medicare-eligible retires. What is fair about reducing the health benefits for us in order to help the non-Medicare retirees and active teachers? What is wrong with having all active employees and all retirees sharing the expense?

2) Please do not underestimate the difficulties we’ll face if the change is forced on us. Even Mercer admits that the change will cause problems.

I am 83 years of age. I have my doctors and prescription plan in place. I have worked for my retirement and should not face this kind of aggravation and change in benefits.

Did the school system contact the Medicare eligible retirees to ask if the Medicare-eligible retires were willing to pay more to keep the current supplemental health insurance? No!

3) Will the school system increase the proposed $3,281 a year contribution if costs increase in the future for the amount of the School Board contribution for Medicare-eligible retires? If not, why not and why should they be solely responsible for this added expense?

4) How much is Mercer charging for its work on the proposal?

I urge the School Board board to keep rejecting this proposal. All employees, active and retired should continue to share the health care expenses. This is the fair way!

I’m thankful to be an American! God bless America!

Willa Richardson

retired teacher

Baton Rouge

Comments

1) Comment by Jane.Doe - 30/07/2012

I agree with Ms. Richardson. The big motivator for retiring from the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board was 1) pension and 2) keeping your insurance after retirement. A typical employee may have received low pay all those years but gambled on living a long life and reaping the rewards at a later date. Now take Ms. Richardson, for example, she is 83 years old and from her letter I am assuming she did not sign up for Medicare Part B at the age of 65 due to the fact she had retirement insurance from the school board. Then at the age of 83 the school board changes their mind and says "sorry Ms. Richardson we are taking you off the plan and you need to sign up for Medicare Part B." The problem with this is that while the current premium for Medicare Part B is $99 a month, it will not be that price for Ms. Richardson along with the other 4,000 retirees or so put into this position. They will face a 10% penalty for each year they could have been on Medicare but didn't sign up. Crazy, crazy law that I do not understand. To me the government should be happy they haven't used it when they could have. If someone could explain this to me I would appreciate it. Anyway, I used the Medicare B calculator and Ms. Richardson would have to pay premiums to Medicare of $280 a month using 1/1/1929 as her birthday with income of $85,000 or less and a Medicare start date of 1/1/2013. In addition she would have to pay for a Medicare Supplement Plan as was discussed in the meetings. Is this fair? Is this affordable for the typical retiree? Some of the retirees are much older than Ms. Richardson. I know one who would have to pay close to $400 a month just for the Medicare Part B and not the supplement that is needed. No one has spoken about this dilemma. If someone from the school board could address how this would be handled I would truly appreciate it. It should be noted that I was told by Extend Health that the retirees would not have to face that penalty because they are coming from a qualified plan; however, the qualified plan they are coming from is a retirement plan. The Medicare website is very specific about retirement plan vs a non-retirement plan. If you worked past the age of 65 and was on a group plan then when you terminate your employment you can sign up for Medicare without a penalty; however, if you are retired and on a group retirement plan then you face a penalty. Extend Health whom the East Baton Rouge School Board is relying on for their information doesn't even know the rules unless they have an agreement with Medicare to exempt these retirees from the penalty. This has not been addressed either. Thank you.

2) Comment by timesright - 30/07/2012

After attending one of the information sessions, I felt better about the proposed insurance changes but definitely not completely sold. What hit me the most was the explanation of our system being self-insured and how actually BC/BS fits into the picture. I couldn't help but think that there could be a more rapid decline in money for the self-insured plan, therefore leaving the possibility of not being able at all to insure employees or retirees. That could be quite devastating! What is happening here is becoming common place across the country. Do I like it? Indeed not!

3) Comment by [e-mail] - 30/07/2012

Ms. Richardson did what she wanted to do; teaching is a commendable choice, not a heroic one though some teachers are certainly heroic. But dire situations call for dire remedies.

4) Comment by tradewinns - 30/07/2012

retired folks have no where else to go, whatever deal was made to them should be honored. the unfortunate thing is they made their deal with politicians, natural born liars. any funds needed to support those already retired which meets whatever deal was made to the retirees should come directly out of the politicians salary pool. when all that's gone we'll have to figure out something else.

5) Comment by Traveler - 30/07/2012

Ms, Richardson, all of your points are valid. If the retired educators of the EBRP School System will communicate their outrage at this act of bad faith on the part of the school board, there is a good chance that the board will do what it is perfectly capable of doing-----they will choose other ways to balance the budget that do not create an onerous burden on the Medicare-eligible retirees. The EBRP school board members should be heartily ashamed of themselves for attempting to withdraw a hard-earned benefit that was promised to the employees who are vested in the health insurance program. When viewed as part of the entire budget of the system, the $8.7 million that the board says they can save is actually quite small and can be absorbed into other line items, including some line items that are clearly frills. I hope that you will e-mail the board members individually and that you will ask all the retired employees you know to do the same thing----the board members are influenced by those contacts. Active employees should also be concerned, for obviously the board's proposal will affect current employees when it's time for them to retire. By the way, despite the fact that the proposed move is reportedly recommended by Mercer, this proposal has the Chamber written all over it.