Chair Talk

January 2010

We have started the New Year with major changes in our Health Plan. As of January 1 we no longer have Medicare Advantage. For those retirees that are Medicare eligible we now have a Medicare Supplemental Plan. Your red, white and blue Medicare Card will be the first card offered to providers prior to the Blue Cross card. The Prescription Drug Plan is now administered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield (Medco is the mail-order vendor). New Blue Cross cards had been mailed last month. The Blue Cross card will be for Health, Prescriptions and Vision. A card for mental health/substance abuse will be mailed by Magellan the vendor for those services.

A flurry of bills were introduced in December by House Speaker Andy Dillon to coincide with HB 5345 (Public Employee Health Care) and harmonize all manner of health care plans currently in existence in various public/government entities. HB 5671 was introduced by Rep. Phil Pavlov (R) that would require reporting various health care plans/costs to DMB for them to evaluate the data. The question that came to mind after HB 5671 was introduced was that if they don’t know what the various plans already are, how did they come up with the figure that pooling would save over $900 million? Did they pull this amount out of the air? My thoughts are that this Public Employee Health Plan was a disorganized campaign for the Speaker to involve himself in. Even though the Speaker was at our November CC meeting, I am still not convinced that his health care plan will save what he claims. We will continue to monitor the legislation and attend scheduled committee meetings.

I have invited Mr. Douglas Drake (Group Manager and Senior Policy Consultant) a member of Public Policy Associates, Inc. (a respected national research firm) to be our guest speaker at the February CC meeting. Mr. Drake was the researcher that authored the report questioning the purported savings claimed by Speaker Dillon and supporters of HB 5345. Mr. Drake is also the Chair of the State Employee Retirement Board. I am sure that his talk will be of great interest to all of us.

I expect that this year will be as busy (if not busier) as last year with the Dillon legislation and other issues that may affect retirees.

Editor’s note: Bob Kopasz is Chair of the Michigan SERA Council. He may be reached at P.O. Box 692, Mt. Morris, MI 48458; phone 810/240-8380

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