Annual enrollment may start one month early?

[midwestbroker]

Ford has already done this last year. They allow their retirees a $1800 allowance for healthcare for premium, co-pays, deductibles, etc.

The GM folks can enroll anytime under a SEP, but they will loose their coverage early.

Frank has a great point, that they need to look at Med supps...However, most of the people from Ford I talked to last year were all looking at MA plans.

The thing about MA plans, is that a company can offer them nationwide with the same premium. I talked to Embark retirees (part of sprint) and they were offered a PFFS plan last year through Aetna (I think) that was $176 per mo across the nation. Plan was subpar in benefits compared to the local plans, but interesting that they would do that.

AEP Starts Oct 1 in my book. I will have them start filling out the apps and have the client drop them in the mail Nov 15th. Worked last year...

 

[Kimber]

I'm in Michigan and have been dealing with the GM salaried retiree's who are losing their health coverage 1-1-09. Extend Health a company out of San Francisco is being brought in to help the retiree's enroll in health and prescription plans. I read that they'll be enrolling them starting Oct 15th. I don't know how they'll be able to do that unless there is some kind of new enrollment period that Medicare is allowing. It would be nice if the annual enrollment period was from 10-15 through 12-31 instead of 11-15 through 12-31. It would give us more time to help out, that 45 days just isn't enough time.

Anyone heard anything about this?

I read an article which indicated that this group of people would be given an SEP so that they could get settled before the rush begins.

 

[insurance0707]

I read an article which indicated that this group of people would be given an SEP so that they could get settled before the rush begins.

Giving the GM retiree's an SEP and letting them enroll in Oct for a Jan 1st issue date sounds logical, sounds like the right thing to do......until it gets submitted to the insurance company who will reject it and and say "No" you don't have an SEP, you have to wait until Nov 15 to enroll using the AEP Our 2009 prouducts cannot be written until Nov 15.... Someone better have a talk with the insurance companies

 

[senior-advisor-indiana]

It doesn't make sense to me. Look at all the enrollments they make us cram in alreay in that short period. Why would they give those few people extra treatment?

 

[insurance0707]

I think there's 97,000 of them - GM retiree's that are losing their coverage.... maybe they are making an exception or extend health is going to try the SEP route

 

[Frank Stastny]

I think there's 97,000 of them - GM retiree's that are losing their coverage.... maybe they are making an exception or extend health is going to try the SEP route

It really doesn't make any difference how many of them there are. Why should they get special treatment when there are a lot more than that who are going to have to wait.

CMS is a joke as are all the goofy regulations they are coming up with. They are treating agents like puppets on a string or a circus dogs.

Don't you know everyone there is laughing their asses off saying things like, "Wait until they see this one, this will really mess with their heads and screw up their attempts to help seniors and make money. HAHAHAHAHAHA".

If they really wanted to help seniors they would let us do comparisons and sell that crap like we sell Med Supps.

They just love watching us jump through hoops. Not this agent though.

 

[patch36]

I have met with a few retirees since this was announced. It appears to me that they will try to funnel ALL of this through Extend Health. We might get a little spill over, but it appears the union is heavily involved from the Local's website I accessed. It also appears to affect all retirees, not just salary as some have stated.

 

[jdeasy]

I have met with a few retirees since this was announced. It appears to me that they will try to funnel ALL of this through Extend Health. We might get a little spill over, but it appears the union is heavily involved from the Local's website I accessed. It also appears to affect all retirees, not just salary as some have stated.

Just the salary folks. They can't make a unilateral decision like that for the unionized workers.


Shell-shocked GM retirees react: 'This is a knife stab in the back' | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

 

[patch36]

I obviously misunderstood and the info I read was from Extend Healths site, not the union local as I had thought. Thanks

 

[insurance0707]

Last year after all was said and done with the Ford retiree's, extend health wrote about 50% The rest were written by independent agents, company direct, etc. I was suprised. I would have thought they'd get 90 - 95% because Ford recommended them. Although, I'm sure they weren't too happy with Ford