Retirees’ outrage over health plan changes prompts legislative special session
The Delaware General Assembly will hold a special session later this month to vote on adding more oversight to the transition of state retirees’ health care plan to Medicare Advantage, a move that has been protested across Delaware in recent weeks.
Yet retirees are still looking to reject this plan altogether, as a lawsuit seeks to block the transition to Medicare Advantage, a type of Medicare plan offered through a private insurer.
The special session, which has bipartisan support in both chambers, will be on Oct. 26, just two days after the deadline for retirees to opt out of the Medicare Advantage plan. If retirees do, they would lose their state-funded health care, which state officials are strongly urging retirees against.
Retirees are hoping the court will make a ruling before the deadline later this month. The plan goes into effect Jan. 1, 2023.
BACKGROUNDDelaware plans to change its retiree health care plan. Seniors are mad and fighting back
The Legislature will not vote to block this contract with Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Delaware. Lawmakers have said they do not have the power to do that.
Instead, they will vote to create a subcommittee under the State Employee Benefits Committee that will “add further oversight to the transition process.” It will be made up of state retirees, sitting legislators and union representatives who will “monitor Highmark’s performance during the three-year life of the current contract,” according to a news release.
Senate Bill 348, which has yet to be filed, would also create an ombudsperson in the Department of Human Resources, tasked with assisting state pensioners with the transition under the new plan.
RISEDelaware, a nonprofit that formed to advocate for retirees and fight this change, called the special session a “pathetic distraction to placate retirees and pretend that the new Medicare Advantage plan resembles our current plan in any way.”
“An actual reading of the plan documents would show legislators the all too real dire problems retirees will face,” the group said in a statement.
Delaware officials, earlier this year, decided to move to a Medicare Advantage plan as a way to decrease the state’s ballooning unfunded liability. Estimates show it could grow to $33 billion by 2050.
These types of private plans have received intense public scrutiny. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General published a report this spring that found that there have been “widespread and persistent problems related to inappropriate denials of services and payment.”
A New York Times investigation published this week found that health insurers exploited this program in order to increase their profits by billions of dollars. They do this, the New York Times reported, by creating systems to make their patients appear sicker – yet not providing additional treatment.
In Delaware, many retirees worry they are being forced to sign up for health insurance that could deny or delay care. Many say they worked for the state for decades in order to obtain the state’s robust retirement package. Now, they feel betrayed.
The decision to move to Medicare…
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