Supervisors defend county health insurance policy, again [Creston News Advertiser, Iowa]

Feb. 9--Clarification and understanding were the names of game at Union County's Board of Supervisors' meeting Monday afternoon.

Frank J. DeMarco, president of American Administrators, a company that provides benefits administration for the county, addressed what he said might be 'misunderstandings' at Monday's meeting.DeMarco said he called auditor's offices for surrounding counties to find out how much the counties and their employees were paying for health insurance coverage.

"I would say you're in line," DeMarco said. "I don't think anybody could criticize Union County for giving richer benefits to their employees or anybody that's insured by the plan, be it retiree or not."

The long-term care policy for Union County employees is to mitigate the risk that is present in the current medical plan document, which allows 730 days in an extended care facility.

In a letter to the editor, DeMarco states placing the long-term care policy allowed the county to pay a few thousand dollars to transfer the risk of a potential claim of several hundred thousand dollars.

DeMarco also states the 730 days of extended care can't simply be taken out of the plan because it covers many union employees, and Union County has contracts with the union that would prohibit changes without opening contracts.

Another issue DeMarco addressed at the meeting was the county making their medical employee benefits, for elected officials, contributory. This means employees over 65 can opt off being the primary on the county's plan and be the primary on Medicare.

"It seems the county has been under attack for supposedly giving perks and spending too much money on Medicare supplement," DeMarco said. "This is kind of an important thing to understand, we set up their plan so elected officials could opt out of the health insurance plan, because when you have a plan where any entity is paying 100 percent of the premium, they can't opt out, you have to give them coverage.

"DeMarco referred to Union County Supervisor Bob Jansen, who is applicable for the Medicare supplement policy."If Bob came on the plan, that would've cost $15,000 in hard cash for the county to have paid for him because he would've been the primary and he would've had to take the insurance," DeMarco said. "The government would've made the Union County plan pay first before Medicare paid."

DeMarco added the Medicare supplement policy will save the county thousands in hard dollars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential risk.

"I think some of the things I've been reading is 'look the county's doing something special for Bob, look at those supervisors trying to rip off the county,'" DeMarco said.

"What they actually did was they saved the county $10,000 by doing that."

Another change in the county's health insurance plan is the supervisors worked to increase the old $200 plan deductible to a $1,000 deductible. DeMarco said this is a benefit level that is more consistent with other health insurance policies out there.

"The county's being very intelligent in trying to mitigate and reduce risks and end up getting criticized for it," DeMarco said. "It's a misunderstanding basically."

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