U.S. Steel retirees may pay more for health insurance next year

Dec. 23--As U.S. Steel transitions its retirees into a Highmark PPO Medicare Advantage plan for 2016, up to 1,400 of the Pittsburgh company's retirees may be automatically enrolled in a Coventry/HealthAmerica health plan that carries much higher annual out-of-pocket maximum costs.

This group is among 2,000 or so USS retirees currently in a U.S. Steel-sponsored Coventry plan that the company is ending Dec. 31. Unless retirees take steps to opt out, Coventry is automatically enrolling them in one of its individual plans that will not be sponsored by U.S. Steel.

While the insurer says it was trying to inform retirees about their options, U.S. Steel wants those former workers to know what they need to do to retain company-sponsored coverage under its exclusive agreement with Highmark.

Aetna/Coventry spokesman Walter Cherniak Jr. said the insurer decided to auto-enroll the retirees after some members contacted it in November. U.S. Steel had announced it was dropping their HMO option. "We heard from a number of them: 'Hey, I got this letter and I don't know what I should do.'"

Some wanted to stay with Coventry, he said, and others asked for a referral to a broker who could advise them. "Our sense was our members were turning to us in uncertainty and were looking to us for guidance and help."

About 600 retirees have opted out of Coventry to date, he said.

Tim Lightner, Highmark vice president for product and marketing, said Highmark's company-sponsored coverage offers certain benefits to members that individual plans do not, such as the employer's contribution to reduce premium costs.

The Highmark plan also features a $1,500 annual out-of-pocket cost maximum for members, compared with $6,700 maximum for Coventry's individual plans, as well as more extensive Part D prescription drug coverage when seniors reach the "donut hole" coverage gap -- the gap between the end of a basic benefit and the start of catastrophic coverage during which seniors pay a larger share of their drug costs.

Company-sponsored plans "generally have a much richer set of benefits," Mr. Lightner said.

Mr. Cherniak said Coventry wanted to let members know their options, noting that one of its offerings has a zero monthly premium, although a higher deductible. Highmark's premium is $95 a month. "The whole idea was to make people aware of the choices available to them," he said.

Mr. Cherniak also noted that, at the time U.S. Steel notified its retirees that it was ending the Coventry HMO plan, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court had not ruled on UPMC's bid to remove Highmark's Medicare Advantage members from its network. Some Coventry members wanted to make sure they had access to UPMC physicians and facilities, he said.

The court subsequently let stand a lower court ruling that requires UPMC to accept those Highmark members.

For those wishing to do so, opting out of Coventry requires making two toll-free phone calls: One to Coventry at 1-800-290-0190 to say the member doesn't want to be in the individual plan, and another to Highmark at 1-866-673-9112 to say the member wants to enroll in the U.S. Steel-sponsored plan.

Members should call by Dec. 31, although Mr. Lightner said U.S. Steel may extend its open enrollment period into 2016.

U.S. Steel spokeswoman Courtney Boone said the company will be calling and sending letters to the retirees in coming days to let them know they must take steps if they want to continue to be in the company-sponsored plan.

"It's very important for us to provide our employees with competitive health care benefits, and we've worked very diligently to do so."

Steve Twedt: [email protected] or 412-263-1963.

___

(c)2015 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Visit the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at www.post-gazette.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.