Treasurer Folwell Announces New Third-Party Administrator for the State Health Plan
Wednesday, January 4, 2023
North Carolina’s Treasurer announced on Wednesday, January 4 the award of the Third-Party Administrative (TPA) Services Contract to Aetna. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (Blue Cross NC) is the current TPA for the Plan and has been the TPA for more than 40 years.
The three-year initial service period for the contract begins January 1, 2025, and continues through December 31, 2027, with the option to renew for two, one-year terms.
This change will not impact our members who are enrolled in the Humana Group Medicare Advantage Plans. It will only impact members on the Base PPO Plan (70/30) and the Enhanced PPO Plan (80/20) which are currently being administered by Blue Cross NC.
Plan members will start receiving more information regarding the changes in 2024 prior to our Open Enrollment Period for the 2025 benefit year.
The administrative contract, awarded by the State Health Plan Board of Trustees, oversees health care spending of more than $17.5 billion over five years. The new contract reflects a partnership that focuses on transparency and lower costs, with the potential administrative cost savings over the course of the contract equaling $140 million.
The award is the result of a Request for Proposals, a competitive bid process in which the Plan solicited and selected industry-leading partners providing exceptional customer service, technological resources and professional support. The services under the contract include processing claims and offering a comprehensive network of health care providers. Aetna was one of three companies bidding for the contract. Blue Cross NC and UMR, Inc. also submitted proposals.
The State Health Plan, a division of the Department of State Treasurer, provides health care coverage to nearly 740,000 teachers, state employees, retirees, current and former lawmakers, state university and community college personnel, and their dependents.
$500 Travel Giveaway Winner Announced: Local Government Retiree
Congratulations to the winner of our $500 Travel Giveaway. Lesha West retired in 2014 from the Cabarrus County Department of Social Services. Prior to that, she was with the Rowan County Department of Social Services. We hope she enjoys a wonderful trip in 2023!
Win $500 Toward Travel. Deadline is January 3, 2023!
Whether sand and waves or a view of the Eiffel Tower, here’s a chance to earn $500 toward travel to your dream destination in 2023. You do not need to be a member to win. Use the QR code or visit bit.ly/ncrgeagiveaway to enter the giveaway.
NCRGEA Executive Director Quoted in Op-Ed Article About Current Shortage of Public Servants
“They can’t keep people”: There’s a critical shortage of public employees in NC
News & Observer, December 1, 2022, by Ned Barnett
Callers to the Social Security office are put on a seemingly endless hold.
Callers to a state Department of Motor Vehicles office in Raleigh often get the message: “Your called party is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.”
Cities and towns across the nation have closed city pools for lack of lifeguards, while school systems are canceling bus pickups for lack of drivers.
The COVID pandemic has aggravated a worker shortage across the U.S. economy, but it’s hitting public employees especially hard.
“At the local level, governments are pulling out all the stops to get people,” said Leisha DeHart-Davis, a professor of public administration and government at the UNC School of Government. “The status quo no longer works for retaining and securing people.”
A UNC survey of local government employees found that 23 percent of them were planning to leave their job, up from 15 percent before the pandemic.
The pandemic’s disruptions and rising private sector wages have accelerated the loss of government workers, but the roots of the problem go deeper. Republicans have been pushing back against the value of public employees at least since President Ronald Reagan fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Benefits have been pared back, pensions have lost ground to inflation and fewer young people are drawn to public service.
In North Carolina, legislation passed in 2017 eliminated retiree health benefits for state employees and teachers hired after 2020. Meanwhile in the past 10 years, retired state employees’ cost of living allowance (COLA) totaled only 2% and Local Government Employee’s COLA in the same period has increased by less than 1%.
“Things have just been rolled back,” said Tim O’Connell, executive director of the N.C. Retired Governmental Employees’ Association. “The promise of what a pension would deliver upon retirement is not there the way it was for folks who retired 20 or 30 years ago.”
As benefits shrink and private sector wages rise, the state government is struggling to attract and keep workers who provide both basic and essential services.
State agencies are reporting vacancy rates as high as 20, 30 and 40 percent. DMV Commissioner Wayne Goodwin has boosted starting salaries for drivers license examiners, but it’s not enough to fill gaps.
Beyond wages, Goodwin said, his employees are burdened by filling in for missing workers and a sense that their public service is not valued. “We do hear in exit interviews that they don’t feel like they are getting respect from the public,” he said. “It can be a stressful job.”
Even at the federal level, once the gold standard for public employee pay and benefits, eroding pay, short staffing and low morale are inhibiting the delivery of services.
Valerie Langley, a 31-year Social Security Administration employee based in Charlotte, said her office’s traffic has fallen from 78 employees prior to the pandemic to 64 even as the population served has increased sharply. “They can’t keep people,” she said.
The union representing Social Security employees, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), said the agency nationally has 4,000 fewer field office and teleservice center employees than it did 12 years ago. Meanwhile, the number of Social Security beneficiaries has risen by 21 percent since 2010.
Langley, a union steward, said the public blames employees when the phone isn’t answered or employees are late to appointments. “That’s the stereotype – lazy government workers,” she said. “It’s honestly the exact opposite. We’re overworked and overwhelmed.”
For too long, Republican lawmakers have neglected raising wages for public employees, enhancing benefits or modernizing government workplaces. Now that neglect has converged with the Great Resignation. Elected officials all levels are going to have to answer why taxpayers seeking services are instead getting busy signals, long lines and extended delays.
Reposted with permission from Associate Opinion Editor Ned Barnett. Read more at: https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article269329472.html#storylink=cpy
Pension Dollars Keep Rural Communities Alive
Driving along the interstates throughout North Carolina you can see the growing skylines of the cities and construction of new business. It’s not until you start driving down the smaller state maintained highways that you start to come into the more than 450 towns within our state with populations fewer than 10,000. Towns that aren’t nearly as prosperous as their neighbors on the interstates. These are the towns with the shrinking populations.
“National economic trends coupled with population declines have had a devasting impact on many small towns and rural areas across America. Often, the largest employer in these smaller towns is a public entity like a school system or municipality that employs teachers, nurses, firefighters, and public safety officials. These public employees spend their career serving their communities at a time when a growing number of young workers are leaving their hometowns for job opportunities in urban areas,” said Dan Doonan, National Institute on Retirement Security executive director.
These are the town that are more dependent on the incomes of its residents than on the tax revenues brought in from major corporations and big developments. These are the towns where the residents that worked there for the community are more likely to retire there. And these are the towns where their public pension benefits go beyond the retirees and their families. Their benefit dollars also play a critical role in supporting the local economies.
Retired public employees spend their pension income in their towns on goods and services like housing, food, medicine and clothing, which serves as a stable source of economic activity in smaller communities
Dan Doonan, NIRS executive director
Research by the NIRS revealed that, in absolute terms, the greatest number of public pension recipients and, therefore, public pension benefit dollars, reside in big cities. But because the economies in the cities are large and complex, the economic impact of pension benefit dollars is modest. However, in small towns and rural areas where the economies are more dependent on the income of its residents, the economic impact of pension benefit dollars goes farther.
The NIRS examined the economic impact of public pension benefit dollars at the county level in 2,922 counties across 43 states representing every region of the country. North Carolina was one of the seven states that was not included in the research.
The analysis of the data reveals that pension benefit dollars account for an average of 1.2% of gross domestic product (GDP) in those counties. NIRS believes this is because many rural areas have agriculture-dependent economies. Farms often are described as “asset rich, but cash poor.” This means that the value of the land, equipment, and goods produced is high, but the monthly cash income of the farmers is relatively low. Therefore, the pension benefit dollars in these counties represent a greater portion of personal income than GDP.
Likewise, the benefit dollars make up an average of 1.25% of the total personal income in the counties. Therefore, GDP and total personal income derived by pensions are why these communities experienced the greatest relative economic benefit from public pension benefit dollars.
“Eventually, public employees in rural and smaller communities retire and typically stay in their hometown. Retired public employees spend their pension income in their towns on goods and services like housing, food, medicine and clothing, which serves as a stable source of economic activity in smaller communities. Our analysis clearly indicates that pension spending provides a substantial economic impact on struggling small towns and rural communities across the nation,” Doonan explained.
The NRIS analysis reveals two interesting effects taking place in rural counties concerning pension benefits. Pension benefit dollars provide metropolitan and rural counties similar levels of GDP, but rural areas have a greater percentage of personal income from pension dollars.
Additionally, the conversation about public pensions should not focus solely on the dollars contributed to the plans, it also must acknowledge substantial economic impact they have across the state, especially in the rural areas.
Giving Back Without Getting Scammed
As we approach the holidays, people are at their most generous. We spend time with loved ones, buy gifts for each other, and strengthen our communities through charitable donations. Unfortunately, scammers know this, and they come out of the woodwork to try to take advantage of people’s generosity. Take precautions to make sure your donations go where you want and not to line some scammer’s pocket.
Before you give, do your research on the charity or organization. It’s a good idea to donate to charities that you are personally familiar with or that operate visibly in your community. If researching online, double check that the charity’s URL is legitimate by looking for a lock icon and an “https:” in the address bar. Copycat websites and apps will resemble a business’s brand name closely or have a URL that is similar to the real thing.
Don’t respond to unsolicited emails, text messages, and social media posts asking you to give. Although the cause may sound worthy of your hard-earned money, taking the time to verify an organization’s legitimacy is worth it.
Be careful of calls from charity fundraisers. Some telemarketers keep up to 90% of the money they collect for charities. Your money will go further if you give directly to the real charity, not to hired fundraisers. Also, scammers will often try to pressure you into donating. Remember that legitimate fundraisers will not push you to make a donation immediately.
If you are unsure whether a charity is the real deal, you can call my office’s Consumer Protection Division at 1-877-5-NO-SCAM to check whether the charity has complaints against it, or you can call the North Carolina Secretary of State’s office to check its license. You can also research a charity’s ratings and history using resources including the Better Business Bureau’s (BBB) Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator, Charity Watch, or GuideStar.
Once you have chosen and verified a charity, it is best to pay by credit card for security and tax purposes. If you decide to pay by check, always make it out to the charity and not an individual.
For more information on common charity scams and how to avoid them, visit ncdoj.gov/charity. And if you think you or someone you know has been the victim of a scam, file a complaint with my office’s Consumer Protection Division at www.ncdoj.gov/ complaint or by phone at 1-877-5-NO-SCAM. The holiday season is a special time of year, and I hope this season brings joy to you and your loved ones.
