Rx note from Bob Abbott

I hope the holidays were good to everybody. I found them horribly busy but OK.

Here's the clarification I promised a couple weeks back.

On the advice of the counsel our slush fund hired we did not enter into any class action type of process. The reason being that, in his opinion, Summit County judges usually don't look favorably on class action suits. And, of course, that's the county we would have to work with. He also thought that the best area would be investigating the action the BJ initiated to those retirees over 65 and on Medicare. In short, we were literally "forced" to sign up for Medicare part D (prescription). This is in essence an "Advantage" program administered by Aetna. That means that Medicare pays Aetna to (in this case) take care of the BJ's obligation of our prescription card. Those monies come from our continuing payments to Medicare.

We did discuss those under 65 who were having problems with their prescription cards. He said that since that was entirely in the BJ's court that it should be up to the union lawyers to straighten it out and that probably would be difficult at best. As we know, there was no action from any of the different unions' lawyers. My understanding is that the company has a lot of latitude in administering that under the different union contracts.

So, what happened was an investigation and correspondence as to the BJ's stance on forcing those on Medicare into the Aetna Advantage prescription program. Their stance (and they did respond quickly) was that they were interpreting this in accordance to the contract in effect at the
time of each retirees separation/retirement from the BJ. This, as I understand, is pretty much the standard approach throughout the country. The part I didn't...and still don't...understand is that with our signed (by the company's representative in the human resources department) a separation or retirement agreement spelling out what we were to receive doesn't take precedence over the union contract. I even suggested that the company was misleading at best and fraudulent at worst but counsel said no.

It was evident that the company was going to be rather hard in their position and weren't likely to adjust or change their stance. So, at this point there still hasn't been any actual "legal" action but many areas were explored and a new situation arose that is still being investigated. This will probably take a few more weeks to find out if there is anything there.

We still have some monies left and I'm doing most of the legwork and contacts to save some on his fees. It's not as hard as you might be thinking as I would have had to do half of it anyway in my efforts to resolve the new "situation". I'll try to inform all of you as soon as the dust settles and we can determine where we're at.

It is a frustrating and very slow process as Medicare and medical providers are involved. And to get the same answer from two different parties even in the same department or company is almost impossible. But we have to try.

Those under 65 be aware of the train coming down the tracks. When you get "forced" to sign up for the part D Medicare program it can (and usually does) affect all your coverages even in the Medicare part A and B. It can get ugly.

Ultimately, it might require us to get another person's name on the dotted line once they are affected by the upcoming situation. Legal action can't be started until the person is directly affected. And from some of the stories I have heard...I think some of you have a strong
position to start from. I can't use it because I wasn't directly involved. Then it becomes heresy and doesn't stand up in court.

I want everybody to understand that the only angle we have investigated involves those who were forced to sign up with Aetna part D coverage. The idea there was that if we could breach the dam there...it would favorably affect all parties. But, even if that were to happen those under 65 probably wouldn't get any relief until they reached 65 and were then in the same boat. In other words, there is two different situations which would require two different solutions.

If there are any questions...contact me. I will try to explain further what we have and haven't accomplished and some alternatives that some of you might be able to take but I want everybody to know what our main focus has been to this point.

thanks for your patience

bob abbott