Despite ill feelings about past, Fiscal Court sticks with current agent on health insurance [Commonwealth Journal, Somerset, Ky.]

Oct. 11—At the end of Tuesday's Pulaski County Fiscal Court meeting, county government ended up doing the same thing it's done for years — going with Neikirk Insurance as the agent for employee health insurance.

The way there, however, made for a contentious two-and-a-half hour meeting in which not everyone appeared to walk away satisfied.

Bill Neikirk and Kelly Wilson of Neikirk Insurance showed up Tuesday to present a new health insurance plan for county employees from provider Anthem, as did Kelly Harding of Peel and Holland Insurance, presenting a plan from KACo (the Kentucky Association of Counties).

Neikirk has handled the county's health insurance policy for the last three decades — but the current administration made it clear that things needed to be done differently for that relationship to continue.

Following a motion by magistrate Jimmy Wheeldon to stay with Neikirk, seconded by magistrate Mike Wilson — with a differing take from magistrate Mark Ranshaw, who preferred to wait a couple of weeks to process the information presented on Tuesday by both insurance entities — Pulaski County Judge-Executive Marshall Todd, who beat incumbent Steve Kelley in last year's elections, had stern words for Neikirk based on the way the county did business with them in the past.

"I would ask you (Neikirk), will we have have additional fees applied to our bill going forward, and also will we have a contract?" asked Todd. "I know your answer will be yes, we'll have to renew the contract since we're doing a different carrier, but I don't want to see the monthly bill with a lot more added-on fees, which is not right. We're not voting for that, we're voting for a policy here that we see a bottom line on it (that the cost) is so much, and I want it to be a guarantee going forward that that's where it's going to stay. The first month I see additional fees on that, I'm going to raise cain."

Neikirk said he had no problem with that, and Todd asked, "Why haven't you done that for 20 years? That's what really gets me about trying to move forward with this motion, is all this corruption's been going on for numerous years and we're bringing it out today and everybody is shocked."

However, Neikirk objected to Todd's terminology, saying, "I disagree when you say corruption. You're calling me corrupt, and that's wrong. This has been passed for 30 years. The same policy has been in there at the same time. The court's known it all along. ... I've got a signed contract. Certain people in this room have already seen that contract. ... But yes, I'm standing here telling you, I'm not adding anything to it. ... We'll talk about it again another year, but I do not like to say we are corrupt. We are not corrupt. It's been a legal contract with the county. Just because your predecessor signed it, and his predecessor signed it before that, doesn't make me out to be a crook."

Todd said the previous contract couldn't be found, and Neikirk said he has a copy as do others sitting in the room at the time. Ranshaw asked if he could provide it, and Neikirk observed that "it doesn't make any difference now," as the new deal with Anthem is totally different from the one the county previously had through Neikirk with Humana, which is getting out of the government employee health insurance field, necessitating a change in providers for the county.

"So now you're not willing to provide that contract?" asked Ranshaw, and Neikirk said he didn't mind to share it. Todd chimed in, "We're going forward, not back," and Ranshaw responded, "We need to explore what happened in the past to go forward."

Todd made an amendment to Wheeldon's motion that there should be an agreement on no additional hidden fees from Neikirk in order to move ahead with the vote, and that the county should receive a monthly bill from Anthem as well as from Neikirk to compare. That amendment was approved, as was the vote to accept Neikirk as agent — but Ranshaw voted against it, and the judge threw in a "no" vote as well, leaving the vote count 4-2.

Previous concerns over county insurance expressed in court meetings have involved dissatisfaction with plans for coverage of the families of employees, but that was less of a hot topic on Tuesday than the unexpected fees mentioned by Todd.

"What are your fees to the county? What money is your company making from percentages and mark-up fees to the county on this policy?" asked Ranshaw at one point. He later added that the court "found out" that Neikirk's agency was "tacking on fees," and asked if they would still be doing that with the plan presented Tuesday.

"There are no additional fees in these medical rates above the 4% commissions," said Kelly Wilson.

"In the past, you've put additional fees on it, correct?" said Ranshaw. Kelly Wilson said that was correct, "because we function as a third-party administrator and and consultant."

"So you were charging more to this county to the tune of ... about $75,000 a year," said Ranshaw, and Kelly Wilson responded, "That was included in the rates that were brought to fiscal court each year and approved."

"I've never seen that," said Ranshaw. "I never received a contract. The only thing I receive every year from you guys is this." Ranshaw pointed to a document, and Neikirk and Kelly Wilson identified that as their contract and said everything was included in it. Ranshaw asked where it showed their fees, and Wilson said they were included in the rate.

"When you place a piece of business with a carrier, the way that works is, you have a group app that you fill out. That group app is the contract between you the client and the carrier," said Kelly Wilson. "There's a section on there for us as agent of record. That means that we have the permission from the insurance carrier to represent their products and bring those to you for you all to approve."

But Ranshaw still wanted to do know why magistrates hadn't seen "the actual insurance fees" and said that "apparently the way this has been working for years is that we stroke you guys a check and then you stroke a check to Anthem or Humana or whatever. So your fees are included in your invoice. We never see the actual insurance cost."

Discussions got heated at times, as Ranshaw continued to ask questions and make his points while Wilson and Neikirk attempted to answer.

One key point of discussion was that the Anthem plan Neikirk and Wilson presented offers employees the same benefits they have in their current plan, with a $500 deductible and 100 percent coverage once it's met, with a $2,000 out-of-pocket maximum considering co-pays. However, Wilson told the court that she'd gotten an additional rate reduction from Anthem that very morning.

"As of 10 p.m. (Monday) night, your rate was about $1,069 and Anthem has now come back with a new rate of $1,042.17 per employee," said Wilson. "It took us about four rounds of negotiation with Anthem to get the price from their original offer to where we are today."

Later in the meeting, Ranshaw asked how they were able to "all of a sudden get a lower price" on Tuesday that they didn't have the day before. Wilson said the reason they were able to get that change is that she has been working with representatives from Anthem and Humana, and had asked for the most recent loss runs — "That's your all's claims experience, and your claims experience is actually trending better than it had been when we got these initial rates," she said.

Later in the meeting, Todd said it was a "shocker that we come in here the last day with a new policy," and made his initial comments of the day about his frustration with past practices.

"It's amazing what a little competition will do to prices," said Todd. "We have dropped our insurance premium, no matter which way we go ... over $300,000 today, (and) I am shocked that has happened. ... I have done extensive research ... but what I have found has been shocking to me. That's what I campaigned on, to make sure these things were brought to the light."

Todd said that there has been a "wide variance" between what the county's being charged vs. what Humana has charged, based on the information he's gathered from the past.

"It seems to me, in your billing, you're just willing to add whatever fees that you can get by with," said Todd to Neikirk and Wilson. "I don't want to discredit your agency but I don't like to see that. ... We're here and I'm here and the magistrates to make sure that we are fiscally responsible for taxpayers' dollars. That's what I'm after and I find it just very disturbing what's been going on for the last 10 years.

"I'm here looking at a cheaper price, but keeping the same services for all of our employees, which I think both policies we've (been) presented today do exactly that," he added. "I'm here looking at the best policy, I'm looking at some trust issues, big-time, and going forward, if you are the one that is awarded the contract, I would want a yearly contract that we have seen and we know what's happening in our policy. ... I'm just concerned with what's been going on, and I'm here to change that."

"You're new, and you came on and I agree with what you're saying," said Neikirk. "But the prior administrations for the last 30 years have signed that (and) understood what it all was."

But Todd responded that he didn't think they "understood it at all" and that the court "has been blinded by it."

"It was done on the finance side, and one person signed off on it, and it came to the court and they approved it," said Todd. "They did not know what was happening. It was behind the scenes."

The full conversation and details about the specific insurance plans are available on a livestream recording of Tuesday's meeting at pulaskigov.com.

In other fiscal court business:

—Todd said the county has been approached about being donated a lot of property in the Antioch Shores area. Todd asked for volunteers on the court to go take a look at the property for full consideration before accepting it.

—Treasurer Crissa Morris got the court's approval to hire Heather Hill as her executive secretary. Like Morris, Hill comes from the city of Burnside, having most recently been that city's assistant tourism director.

—Fleet Maintenance Supervisor Frank Hansford said that they had gotten the initial bid on buying 11 previously leased vehicles from Don Franklin Auto negotiated down from approximately $373,000 to $354,000. The court approved the purchase of the vehicles at that new price.

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