Jamestown City Council heard more about an agreement to allow Medicare-eligible city retirees to voluntarily move to a Medicare Advantage plan.
Council member-at-large Jeff Russell said he was part of a committee made up of representatives from the city administration, and active and retired employees who worked on developing this plan over the last eight months.
Russell said most of the costs to the city came from members using their health insurance, so they looked at retirees 65 and older and their spouses and having them voluntarily move over a Medicare supplement program, “If they choose to move over, they’re going to be able to try this plan for approximately one year. At the end of one year, if they don’t like what they see or if they don’t think that it’s going well they can move back over to the city’s self-funded plan. The other thing we came up with is they’re going to get health insurance for free for a period of five years. At the end of five years, the retiree would be locked into at the current rate that they’re paying right now.”
Russell said the potential savings to the city could be up to five-figures a year.
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