Monday, January 16, 2012

Don’t Trust WEA Trust

Very slimy.

Intended to help employers offset the cost of health insurance for early retirees, WEA applied for and received ERRP funding for its plan participants last school year. The nonprofit health insurer sent letters out to each district, informing each that it would receive credits toward its insurance premiums. But after each school district dropped its WEA coverage in favor of other insurers, WEA refused to pay the school districts any of that money, instead redistributing it to those that remained plan participants.

(9) Comments
Posted by Owen at 1843 hrs
Economy + Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. WEA Trust is in deep financial doo-doo; the whole house of cards is about to crash.  IIRC, they also insure early-retired teachers at no- or minimal-premium until they get to Medicare eligibility, so they’re on a very nasty hook as they lose districts.

    Posted by dad29 on January 16, 2012 at 2024 hrs


  2. Why was WEA Trust Insurance allowed to rip off the Wisconsin
    taxpayer for so many years? Why was the corruption allowed? 3.1 million a year saved by the Appleton School districts and thousands saved in other school districts simply by dropping WEA Trust Health Ins. How does this happen? We the Wisconsin taxpayer deserve an answer, at least an investigation.  Share with other Wisconsin taxpayers so they know the truth - we’re sure not getting it from our media.

    Maybe capper could stop calling conservatives are ignorant lying little trolls and explain why he supports corruption.  On second thought…

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 16, 2012 at 2038 hrs


  3. WEA applied for and received ERRP funding

    So they get money and are using as it’s supposed to be. Now the school districts that thought they were so smart are crying because they’re no longer part of the deal? Too bad.

    I’m surprised that Owen is advocating for governments to just take money from a private company like that…

    Posted by capper on January 16, 2012 at 2250 hrs


  4. I’m surprised that Owen is advocating for governments to just take money from a private company like that…

    It’s pretty much all government money anyway - where did EERP funding come from (Federal Government?)?  Where did the premiums that WEA collected come from (local school districts?)?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 17, 2012 at 0641 hrs


  5. Every company benefits in some form from the government.  What you say would be true if it was Humana, Blue Cross, United Health Care or any other insurance company.

    Yet if it was any of those, the right would be screaming bloody murder if a government tried to take their money.  So what’s different about this company?

    Posted by capper on January 17, 2012 at 0713 hrs


  6. EERP (Early Retiree Reinsurance Program) is an obscenity to begin with. It’s purpose is to provide a federal subsidy for those who choose to retire before they are eligable for Medicare.

    The root cause of the problem is not the high cost of insurance, it’s the ability of government employees to retire at absurdly young ages (e.g., most Wisconsin teachers can retire at age 57 in Wisconsin, although the Journal-Sentnel recently noted that oen Jack Takerian was able to retire last April from Milwaukee county at age 47).

    ( http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/rising-pension-benefit-cost-may-hurt-milwaukee-county-pt30rgo-133758348.html )

    Early retirement means in effect that taxpayers are likely to pay for a year of retirement for each year of active service.  This unsustainable burden is where 50 years of government-employee unionism has landed us.

    Apparently it is not legally possible to raise the age for full retirement benefits for existing employees- which is why requiring them to pay toward the benefit is the next-best solution.

    BUT if government is going to remain in the defined-benefit business (instead of just switching all new hires to 401(k) type defined contribution plans), surely the age for full retirement should be raised to 67 or so?

    As for WEA-Trust, I don’t know whether they’ll be able to keep the money.  Again, the root cause of the problem is EERP itself (why should your federal taxes subsidize someone who chooses to retire at 57, or even 47?).  But I think most everyone understands that it’s wrong for them to do so. Unless EERP itself is understood simply as a baksheesh to buy union support, of course.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 17, 2012 at 0847 hrs


  7. So if I am reading this right, the only people actually hurt by this are early retirees, right?  Or are the districts themselves somehow on the hook for ERRP promised payouts?  The logical extension of a district cutting this premium is that early retirees will not get extra benefits(and who cares about that?).  What am I missing?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 17, 2012 at 0924 hrs


  8. While I agree that the EERP program has flaws from the beginning, and that WEA Trust is no innocent of bad decisions, I found a quote at the end of the article rather revealing..

    explained Merton Superintendent Ron Russ. “It’s just us trying to get at the dollars, which we feel we put into the trust, that we feel should come back to us.”

    Superintendent Russ, the money is neither yours nor the district’s; neither of you put the funds into the trust. They are funds from the federal tax payers and if you have somehow disqualified your district from receiving said funds as a result of changing carriers (a decision that I agree with, by the way) then that is something that should have been accounted for in the cost analysis of changing carriers.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on January 17, 2012 at 1218 hrs


  9. Then I do believe that the money should be returned to the federal govt. If the money was awarded for x number of districts and Y actually belong then the difference needs to be returned. WEAC and the remaining districts should not be enriched at the expense of the Federal taxpayers. The remaining districts can still recieve their alloted awards but not extra.

    Posted by fishaddict on January 18, 2012 at 0826 hrs


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