Grayson County changes Medicare Supplement offer for retirees

Nov. 16--Grayson County commissioners decided Tuesday to change the amount of money retirees pay for Medicare supplement coverage.

County Judge Bill Magers said the move was needed because of a sharp increase in the price for elective coverage.

Magers told commissioners that the price the county pays for the 80 or so retirees and their spouses who get the supplemental insurance went up by around $60,000 this year after the court had set the 2017 budget.

He said the county was not expecting to see that kind of increase especially since the county's health care costs, over all, went down for the 2017 budget. Magers said the price of the Medicare supplement went from $80,000 to $94,000 last year. The 2017 cost, Magers said, is expected to be $140,000. That is around $60,000 more, Magers said. He said that is too much money for the county to just continue to absorb that increase.

Magers said when he saw the notice of the increase from United American Insurance, he called the County's Human Resources Director Kelly Beall and Auditor Richey Rivers and tasked them with finding out what was going on and come up with alternatives to deal with it.

Beall said they came up with two plans. One of those charged the same amount of increase to anyone selecting to use the Medicare supplement and the second split that group into two groups for fees. In the second group, the former employees pay one price and their spouses pay a higher one.

After a great deal of discussion, Magers asked Beall what she would recommend, and she said just to keep things simple, it would be best do the same things with the Medicare supplement that the county does with the insurance coverage for employees. Employees are covered by the county at a higher rate than their family members meaning employees pay more for coverage for their families than they do for themselves or the county pays more of the coverage for its employees that it does for their family.

Beall said it would be best to do the same thing with the Medicare supplement. Commissioners expressed concern to getting the changes made and out to their retirees in time to allow those people to budget for the increased expense.

Beall said it might be that some of those people will choose to discontinue using the supplement through the county and go out to the open market to get it at better price. She explained that the might be able to do that because the county's retirees are all lumped into one group when being considered by their current plan. But if a retiree leaves and hunts for their own coverage, they would be lumped in with all of the other people of the same age seeking a new plan and that might save them money. Generally, she said, the older a person is, the more they could expect to pay for the supplemental plan.

The plan changes become effective January 1, Magers said.

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