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Extra Health Insurance costs to benefit a
few?
Did you read the
editorial about a “vocal commissioner” trying to change the health
insurance for employees that would only benefit 11 people at a cost
of $36,000 to the taxpayers? The editorial implied that the
Commissioner and his wife, “who works for 911”, must be part of the
11 that benefited.
Since the County
is in a financial crisis, another $36,000 sounded ridiculous. We
called that “vocal commissioner” (Bob Yarbrough) and asked about the
new health insurance plan that only benefits 11 people. He explained
that EVERY SINGLE COUNTY EMPLOYEE would benefit. He said
that the $500 deductible would decrease to $250 for EVERY employee
of the county. He guessed that the 11 people that the
editorial was talking about were the employees that have more than 1
child covered by county insurance. Those 11 employees would have
their deductible go from $1500 to $750 with the new plan. He said
he felt that a $1500 deductible was much too high for the employees
to afford; it was more like a major medical payment. He also said
that every employee would benefit because their co-pay on both
prescription drugs and doctor visits would decrease.
We then called
the Human Resource Officer, Tammy Fisher, and asked her if what we
were told was right. She said, “Yes, all that was correct. But the
best part was, we had a great insurance rep, Kelly Fox, and he had
called Aetna and told them about our financial problems here.” She
told us he had worked it out with Aetna so the lower
deductibles would NOT cost the county anything extra.
Some other facts
that might interest you. The County took on a huge burden for
employee insurance in 2001 when the past Board of Commissioners came
on board. The County had never
paid for family coverage until 2001. After the
vote by those new commissioners (we’re looking for the resolution to
see if it was 3-2), the taxpayers started picking up the cost of the
health insurance of not only the County employee, but also for half
of the family coverage of every county employee. There was no
outcry then! Mr. Bennett had very high premiums and Mr. Crow wasn’t
far behind. The taxpayers got to pay for all of their insurance
(approximately $310/month) and half of their family coverage. Mr.
Hill, Pennamon, and Wyatt only had coverage for themselves.
So there are the
real facts. The Commissioners voted to lower deductibles and
co-pays for ALL county employees, not just 11 special employees. By
the way, we’ve been told the writer of the editorial is Russell
Bennett’s mother-in-law.
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