Some of the retirees feel “singled out as a burden on the municipal budget.” One retired teacher, Angela Papandreou, said, “To me, it’s very discriminatory.” On the flip side Acting Town Manager Kerry Spiedel said, “the age factor in health-insurance premiums is just a "fact of life" and the town must take a look at it when trying to figure out how to save money.”
Speidel is suggesting “adoption of state law Chapter 32B, Section 18, which would require all retired town workers eligible for Medicare to be on it instead of the municipally-provided private health insurance” which “would save the municipal government more than $420,000 annually even when the town's contribution toward private supplemental insurance is factored in.”
In Speidels defense a good amount of retirees already using Medicare “attested that the quality of medical services provided under the federal insurance is no different from the one under private insurance.”
The bottom line for the retirees is cost and quality. If there is a premium increase for some of the retirees can they afford that increase and is the quality going to suffer by making the switch?
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