LANL health benefits cut for thousands.
On April 17th thousands of LANL employees had their health benefits on the BlueCross BlueShield (BCBS) PPO cancelled. LANL blamed BCBS, but calls by employees to BCBS yielded a BCBS claim that LANL had defunded the plan. LANL employees with health care expenses were left to shoulder the expense themselves because local care providers had no confidence in LANL. As of this post McMillan had made NO MENTION of it and no information was posted on the LANL website, but all claims were being refused by providers. Confidence in the nuclear weapons complex is disintegrating from inside and out… things fall apart.
On April 17th thousands of LANL employees had their health benefits on the BlueCross BlueShield (BCBS) PPO cancelled. LANL blamed BCBS, but calls by employees to BCBS yielded a BCBS claim that LANL had defunded the plan. LANL employees with health care expenses were left to shoulder the expense themselves because local care providers had no confidence in LANL. As of this post McMillan had made NO MENTION of it and no information was posted on the LANL website, but all claims were being refused by providers. Confidence in the nuclear weapons complex is disintegrating from inside and out… things fall apart.
Comments
Without citing a source, this post's claim is dubious at best.
April 24, 2014 at 10:04 AM
That, plus the fact that the labs only raise costs when they have to, and only enough to cover increased expenses. There is no profit margin involved. It is a wash for LANS and LLNS, and they get the good press of providing reasonable health insurance to employees and retirees, which will become more and more rare in the private sector.
The provider takes the Medicare money, plus your money (or from your employer) and provides a package that can vary.
The "Group" KSA - Kaiser Senior Advantage that I have thru LLNS costs more than a regular KSA that Kaiser offers to individuals. One nice feature is Kaiser has no "Donut Hole' for meds. (What criminal approved such a scam?)
I'm one week short of 16 years service, so LLNS rounds that down to 15 years, and I get 15/20th of the "full" HRA amount. Since LLNS will not fund the individual KSA, it is still better for me to go thru their group.
I think my co-pays and deductibles are less than the individual KSA's.
Q. Does someone know the numbers?
I know Kaiser offers MUCH better policies than ours. For example, we pay $100 each for certain tests, including MRA's, CAT scans, while other Kaiser policies pay nothing or much less. And our $150 credit Eyeglass purchase coverage is basically useless, because Kaiser's artificial retail is so much more than you can just buy elsewhere, but some Kaiser policies provide $350.