City Council member at large Jeff Russell speaks during City Council work session (May 13, 2024)
A proposed policy on handling retirees who fail to pay health insurance premiums on time has one Jamestown City Council member saying the city needs to get its “house in order” on health insurance.
The policy on City Council’s desks would institute a fee of 2% of the monthly premium for payments received on or after the 31st day after billing. It also would cancel health insurance on the first day of the third month of non-payment of premiums.
Any employee or retiree who has a hardship that renders them unable to make timely payments will be able to contact the City’s Health Insurance Office and cases will be determined by the Health insurance Committee on a case by case basis.
And any employee or retiree who is canceled from the City’s health care plan due to non-payment would not be eligible for reinstatement to the plan.
Council member at large Jeff Russell said while he supports the policy there are still issues with the city’s third party health insurance provider, Highmark, “I’ve talked to retirees where there’s lengthy periods of time where bills are not being paid to the point where they’re getting notifications about going into collections. Because, when Blue Cross Blue Shield transitioned over to Highmark it was a complete mess and there are bills that are not being paid in a timely fashion.”
Mayor Kim Ecklund replied that the city needed to get its own policies in order as part of getting that “house in order,” “Frankly, we can’t let retirees go six, seven months with a non-payment on insurance while they’re using the insurance. That’s not fair to the fellow employees. That’s not fair to the city and it’s certainly not fair to the rest of the retirees on the plan.”
Corporation Counsel Elliot Raimondo said Russell’s concerns and the city’s proposed policy are two different issues. He said the city does work with the third party health administrator as health insurance issues for employees and retirees come up, “So, in our own internal controls, these are to address some of the issues that have been pending. Usually, we contact an employee after a month or two months when they haven’t been paying to see what is happening. And during that time period, they’re still taking advantage of prescription drug benefits, of health care benefits. We’re still covering them and we could incur thousands upon thousands of dollars.”
Russell said he’s aware of talk of grievances being filed by unions due to the number of issues with the health insurance transition from Blue Cross Blue Shield to Highmark.
He asked if there could be potential union issues with the city’s proposed policy. Raimondo replied that while there’s always a potential for grievances, the unions don’t represent the retirees, “While obviously they have the retiree interest in mind and just cause for them to reach out and have those issues before us, but also before that grievance could happen we would have to have an instance where the union was grieved in some way.”
The Council Finance Committee did pass the resolution and it will appear on the monthly voting agenda on May 20.
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