The in box. Benefits with strings attached.

While this is a good article, it suggests that teacher retirees haven’t had to pay health care premiums. That is incorrect.

Update: I contacted Patrick and he will correct the error.

Patrick Yeagle, The Illinois Times

A new package of health benefits for state retirees comes with a string attached: an audit to make sure every dependent on the new plans is eligible for coverage. But some retirees say the audit is skewed to kick people off of the rolls.

Historically, state retirees have paid deductibles and other costs for their state-provided health insurance, but they haven’t had to pay the premium cost for those policies. A 2012 state law allowed the Department of Central Management Services (CMS) to split the cost of premiums with retirees, leading CMS to reconfigure the health benefits offered. [See “State retirees anxious about health benefit changes,” Oct. 31, 2013, by Patrick Yeagle.] Along with the new benefits comes an audit to verify the eligibility of all dependents on a retiree’s health plan.

The state hired Health Management Systems, Inc., of Texas to conduct the audit for $393,136, but with the caveat that HMS doesn’t get paid unless the state saves money. That led some retirees to question whether HMS has a financial incentive to make it difficult for them to comply with the audit.

Beverly Johns, a retired teacher and current public speaker on special education, testified before the Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability on Oct. 23, asking why retirees are “being put through this elaborate and complex process.”

“I ask the question about whether it is to detect fraud or is it an attempt to cut off some senior citizens,” Johns said.

Janice Bonneville, deputy director of CMS’ Bureau of Benefits, answered questions posed by legislators about the audit and the health benefits changes at the same Oct. 23 hearing. Bonneville said prior to 2003, no verification was required for dependents on a group insurance plan offered by the state.

“You simply signed them up, put their Social Security number down, and they were on,” she said, adding that there are 183,000 dependents on the state’s coverage. She said that’s far too many people for the state to audit in-house.

“Everyone’s concerned about cost,” she said. “If I’m carrying dependents who aren’t eligible for coverage, it’s costing money to cover those dependents.”

Further questions emailed to two CMS spokeswomen were not answered by press time.

Fred Klonsky, a retired K-5 teacher in Chicago who blogs about topics affecting teachers and fellow retirees, says he and other retirees received no notice that the state planned to audit dependents until HMS sent out a letter demanding sensitive personal information like a certified transcript of a retiree’s latest federal tax return. Many retirees thought it was a scam, he said, and several have called the Office of the Illinois Attorney General asking whether to throw the letters out.

“You’re talking about 80-year-olds getting a letter demanding personal documents and saying they’re being audited,” Klonsky said. “They’re going to be scared shitless, and some of them may not respond.”

Read the entire article here.