September 16, 2016
Dear Everyone:
Back in July we got The Big Announcement from Company.
They are “dropping” all of the various Health Plans in favor of a
“private exchange” that will manage all the
health care insurance issues in one fell swoop.
This is actually a natural progression of sorts.
In the beginning, when people got sick they went to a doctor.
If they were really sick, they went to a hospital.
All of which cost money, of course.
Over time, various large companies, to retain long-term employees,
offered to pay for some of those medical costs.
Getting health insurance through your employer was a “benefit”
that originally was a way to “pay” people without having to pay taxes
for the “income”. Of course,
the IRS caught on to that one pretty quickly; but it still kept costs
down because large companies could negotiate with the insurance
companies for volume discounts.
And people who were fed up with their jobs would stay in order to
keep those benefits.
Companies even got into the habit of guaranteeing some of those benefits
after retirement, at a reduced rate, of course.
Stay with the company for more than 25 years and you would get
about 25% of your health insurance paid for after you left.
It was an easy promise to make back when the average
life-expectancy
was less than 65 and most people died before reaching
retirement.
However. Medical costs
continue to rise even as the average life-span continues to increase.
People are living longer because of the improvements in health
care. And the longer they live,
the more health care they need, especially near the end.
Companies are starting to get tired of carrying all the “dead
wood”.
But they can’t just dump all those retirees.
Not yet, anyway. It
would look bad in the news.
So they’re looking for ways to reduce costs.
Enter an insurance brokerage company called
Willis
Towers Watson. I’m sure
the fact that Company’s
CEO
is also named “Watson” is purely a coincidence.
Towers Watson owns a company called “OneExchange”.
They will be handling all the proceedings.
But first…
An announcement that “more information will be coming”.
In fact, I got a 20-page full-color booklet, with lots of
pictures of happy, older people, which stated, by my count thirteen
times, that “more information will be coming.”
A month later, a newsletter, also sporting lots of pictures of
happy, older people (I especially liked the grey-haired surfer-dude),
announcing that there will be another announcement and “more details
will be coming”. And a
schedule of meetings to get “more information”.
I immediately called the toll-free number to make a reservation for one
of the scheduled meetings.
Because the announcements all had one underlining theme:
You MUST enroll (repeated ten times) before the deadline, or you
will be left out in the cold FOREVER!!!
No second chances. No
do-overs. No annual
enrollment period in October.
Get enrolled or else.
I arrived early for the meeting.
Good thing because the hotel parking lot was almost filled.
They had seating for over 350 and had to add chairs because a lot
more very old people showed up.
Ever been in a hotel meeting room with over 400 over-65-ers in
attendance? Lots of grey
hair. Lots of canes and
walkers. Lots of grumbling.
To be fair, one older gentleman proclaimed that the free coffee and
pastries were “worth the trip!”
Maybe he doesn’t get out much.
Multiple Human
Resources people to introduce more HR people and, finally, the
Towers Watson rep, called “Jennifer”, who was entirely too cheerful by
half. You would think getting
your health benefits yanked out from under you was the best thing in the
world. After a couple of
minutes, I hear some Little Old Lady (LOL) behind me mutter, “I hate her
already.”
The hour-long presentation basically proclaimed:
Get enrolled or else!
More details coming!
Call the toll-free number to make an appointment to call to get
enrolled.
Or, better yet, go to the website, set up a profile, list all your
doctors and prescriptions BEFORE calling the toll-free number to make an
appointment to call to get enrolled.
When I got home there was a message on my phone machine from Towers
Watson, informing me that I should call the toll-free number to make an
appointment… They also
called this morning with the same recorded message.
Did I mention that enrollment won’t even start until October?
Stay tuned for further developments.
And remember what “Marshall” so wisely said about health care
coverage: “They’re all the same as long as you don’t get sick.”
Love, as always,
Pete
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