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Retiree Healthcare
To no one’s surprise, the Mayor did what he has been threatening to do: He ended retiree healthcare as of December 31, 2016. Our related Underwood case is now at the Illinois Supreme Court, and if they take the case we should have resolution next year. Our case is similar to the Kanerva case filed by State of Illinois employ- ees over the same issue—retiree healthcare. In Kanerva, the State Supreme Court ruled that
healthcare is a constitutionally protected benefit
that is part of the pension. We have to hope that
we get the same ruling from the Court and that
they rule as to the cost of retiree healthcare. Clint Krislov lost the motion to enjoin the City to con-
tinue healthcare until the Supreme Court rules on
the case. This case does not affect anyone who retired under the 55 to Medicare or 60 to Medicare free health insurance or retired before Aug. 23, 1989.
We have worked to get retiree healthcare coverage for as many members as possible and I know that members who are non-Medicare are impacted the most by the cost. We have members who are Medicare but their spouse is non-Medicare, making their cost go through the roof. I talk to retirees every day and know the frustration and the huge cost for the non-Medicare members, but remember to focus your anger on who did this to us. Rahm Emanuel threw every City retiree under the bus with no regard for the financial cost he imposed on retirees with a fixed in- come.
The struggle for the FOP was trying to get information from the City so that we could shop for the best health insurance price. The City has all retirees lumped into one group; they can’t parse out Medicare and non-Medicare or what department the retirees worked for, making it im- possible for us to provide numbers to the insurance com- panies. Once we started working on retiree healthcare with Local 2, we were getting inquiries from city laborers, truck drivers and clerks who wanted to be in our plan. At the end of the day the other City unions chose not to par- ticipate in retiree healthcare, leaving their retirees twist- ing in the wind.
Compounding our problem was how to keep the $3,000 HELPS deduction for first responders’ retiree healthcare. To get the deduction, your payment has to come from the pension fund or the City of Chicago. The problem with the pension funds is, for example, 8,000 retirees choose 1,000 different health insurance companies. The funds don’t have the resources to make 1,000 different payouts every month. The Police and Fire pension funds will make a deduction for Labor First AETNA or Blue Cross Blue
Shield. If you are non-Medicare, your insurance costs will exceed the $3,000 HELPS deduction, so you have to get the best coverage for yourself at the best cost. Also, the rules for retiree health insurance vary from state to state, which causes another problem for the insurance com- panies. Florida has one set of rules and then Maricopa County in Arizona has a different set of rules. Personally, I have learned more about health insurance than I want
and I am hopeful we will win in court, making this all fornaught.Ifwearesuccessful,retireeswillbeable to go right back to the insurance they had with the
GREG BELLA
RECORDING
Secretary
City.
This has been a very stressful time for our retir-
ees and their families, having to deal with finding the right coverage at an affordable price. I would like to thank Maggie O’Grady, the FOP office staff and Jack Byrnes from Source One for all the hard work they have done answering the hundreds of calls from our retirees. They went above and beyond to make this process as
smooth as possible for our members.
We are hopeful that every retiree is signed up for health
insurance effective January 1, 2017, so they are not caught without coverage.
Englewood angels
If you listen to the media and the vocal minority, you would think that everyone hates and mistrusts the police. All you really need to know is what happened in Engle- wood, where our officers rescued three little girls from squalor and reunited them with their grandmother. Imag- ine three babies, no food, no bed, no clothes, no parents. Imagine an 8-year-old girl who has never been to school. These Officers are providing for the family in a way that only our members can, and the grandmother said she doesn’t know what she would do without the help of the Officers.
This story negates all the nonsense that is out there and highlights the fact that not one activist or member of BLM came forward to offer any assistance to this family. These types of incidents happen more than you would think across the City, and the good work done by our officers is never reported. Sooner or later people will wake up and realize we are not the problem. d
God bless, stay safe, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I pray that 2017 is a better year for all of us.
CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ DECEMBER 2016 11