MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — About 50 people filed into the Gold Ballroom in the Mountainlair Monday night for the final Public Employees Insurance Agency Finance Board public meeting on proposed health insurance plan changes.
The group provided the board information on what they would face due to the proposed three percent premium increase and the addition of a $200 spousal surcharge.
John Taylor, president of the Taylor County Association of Retired School Employees, said the increases cut directly into the income of his members. One of his members has been retired for 40 years and recently turned 100 years old, and the effects on her standard of living have been brutal.
“They either need to put more money into PEIA or they need to put more money into our pensions—one or the other,” Taylor said. “When push comes to shove, retirees cannot afford more premium increases.”
The co-president of Education West Virginia in Monongalia County, Heather Deluca Nestor, is a teacher at South Middle School in Morgantown said her mother retired after teaching for 32 years and can no longer stay in her own home. Nestor’s mother now lives with her because of the financial strain of the recent increases for retirees.
“She can’t afford to live on her own because of the increases, and it keeps eroding the retirement that she had, and that’s where we are,” Deluca-Nestor said.
Marion Count retiree Thomas Riser explained those on a fixed income have no other option but to watch their disposable income drop year after year. That, along with recent utility rate increases, has him wondering what the future will hold.
“They don’t look at the picture, like when the utilities go up and still we’re losing value in our wages,” Riser said. “So, no matter what they do, it gets eaten up by other increases.”
Thomas Bane is a representative from Education West Virginia who said pay raises designed to offset the premium increases have not equaled financial gains for their members. He believes there are many that will leave the teaching profession and possibly the state for better opportunities.
“While there are incremental raises, those raises don’t take inflation into account, and they don’t take PEIA increases into account,” Bane said. “So, at best, year by year, you’re a hamster on a treadmill because you’re not gaining any money from year to year.”
State Senator Jay Taylor, R-Taylor, was the only active lawmaker in attendance for the meeting and said the 80/20 rule adopted has taken longer to show benefit than what was originally thought. He also said what is happening here is happening across the country, and it should be a signal to act.
“This should be a shot to everyone across America that we need to do something to get this under control; what we’re doing right now is not working,” Taylor said.
The finance board meets Dec. 15 to vote on the proposed changes.