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.
13 comments:
What is your source? I work at LANL, am in the PPO and have heard nothing at all about this from other workers or management. My premium was taken from this past week's check as usual.
Without citing a source, this post's claim is dubious at best.
The hospital in Los Alamos F'ed up and didn't get BCBS coverage in it's ER with it's new contract provider who runs the ER now. It is supposedly a short term issue and a contract with BCBS is suppose to be coming soon. It's really a case of the people running the Los Alamos Medical Center being total numbskulls. It time for new manage at LA Medical Center is what all this amounts to. Nothing to do with LANL itself this time, sorry boys!
LANS new health plans aren't looking so good. Costs for even simple medical services in Los Alamos are getting way out of control.
The costs haven't changed much if at all. The copays have gone up, especially for specialists. Guess what, you get to pay for more of what you demand. In a few years, thanks to Obamacare, virtually no employers will offer health insurance, and those that do will count it as part of your (taxable) compensation.
Good thing I'll be on Medicare by then !
I doubt that lab medical coverage after retirement will last for much long at LLNL or LANL. They'll kick you over to Obamacare and give you a small stipend to help cover Obamacare costs which will be rapidly increasing each year. Good luck with that.
If you wait to retire until age 65, you have Medicare. LANL or LLNL cannot take that away from you. If you retire under age 65, you might have to trust to luck (or maybe Obamacare) for a few years. In any case, employee and retiree health insurance has always been self-funded at LANL and LLNL. That means that anytime the costs go up, the premiums, copays, etc. have to go up to cover it, and they have. The labs are not losing money on health insurance. The fact that there is a pool means that it will always be cheaper than what you could get on the private market.
The fact that there is a pool means that it will always be cheaper than what you could get on the private market.
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 cost of health insurance and deductibles offered by LLNL is only slightly less expensive than what an individual relative of mine pays under Obamacare. On the other hand, the insurance costs for my family through my spouce's employers have been much more affordable than what LLNL has offered. This year we are covered through an employer with more than 20k employees, and last year the employer had fewer than 50. I don't believe that LLNL with 6k employees is doing us justice in negotiating a medical coverage contract.
The Medicare supplement plan offered by LANS is essentially identical to a Medicare Supplement Plan F that you could purchase on the private market (for twice the premium), but also includes a drug plan that is identical to that employees get, which private Medicare supplement plans are prohibited by law from providing, forcing those people to get a separate Part D plan. Also, LANS gives retirees a $90+ monthly credit towards the Part B premium, so the Supplement plan is essentially free. All in all, a pretty damn good deal.
Senior Advantage basically means co-ordinated with Medicare.
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.
The PPO benefits for about 1500 employees were down for about 24 hours. I was affected, but was reimbursed a few days later. LANL kept it quiet. So it goes.
A simple computer glitch at BCBSNM isn't LANS' fault. From experience, I'll bet BCBSNM kept it quiet.
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