Save an hour of waiting

To see if you still can use your pharmacy

I got my new AARP MedicareRx letter and card. I went to the website given in the letter to find out which pharmacies I can use in 2019 (like most companies, Black Press puts vending up for bids every year to get a lower cost for them).

Online, I couldn't find a way to find out which pharmacies I will have to use in 2019.

So I called the United Health Care phone number given to me on the online web site. The computer voice told me that my wait time would be ONE HOUR AND TEN MINUTES !!!!

Sure hope no one with an emergency has to wait that long.

So I went to

Locate a Pharmacy | UnitedHealthcare® - AARP

At
https://www.uhcmedicaresolutions.com/health-plans/aarp-pharmacy.html#/Pharmacy-Search-English



and found out that my Walgreen’s Pharmacy on Howe Avenue still is on the list.

And I saved 1 hour and 8 minutes of time by not waiting for the United Healthcare “help” phone line.

 

I'll make it easier for you. Just click on

https://www.uhcmedicaresolutions.com/health-plans/aarp-pharmacy.html#/Pharmacy-Search-English

 and check out your pharmacy.

Things more important that the $$$ figure on your paycheck

I know it’s fashionable for union employees to bash management for not giving them enough in their paycheck. I was as guilty as anyone else.

But you have to look at the total package.

The AARP Supplemental and Personal Health Plan that the BJ pays the entire premium for those who won the healthcare lawsuit against the Beacon (45 printers and 5 Guild retirees, including me) issued the premium costs to BJ management for 2017:

$1,992.36

Apiece for those of us still alive. If all 50 were alive, that would come to

$99,618

But some of the lawsuit winners have since passed away. But even at, say, $90K, that’s a big chunk of change for the BJ.

That's just for supplemental coverage. Medicare provides the 80% first whack at your bills, costing you about $1,300 a year. AARP Supplemental attacks most of the other 20%.

In my case, after winning the lawsuit against the BJ, with $2 prescription co-pay for every prescription (including those that run $300+ for 30 days), including the Medicare Part B premium my total out-of-pocket medical costs are about $2,000 a year. A bargain in today's soaring medical costs.

During Guild negotiations with the BJ when I was at Ol’ Blue Walls, I always sided on the side of benefits vs. expansive pay raises, because tomorrow’s dollars are always more valuable than today’s dollars.

Here’s the proof.

Thank you, BJ, for making it possible for us to live out our lives without plunging into poverty over medical costs. Also, thank you, Chandra Law Firm in Cleveland, for winning the healthcare lawsuit for us. And, thank you, the late Dave White, for starting this process on a beach in Florida when you got pissed off because the BJ reneged on its promise to you.

BJ taking drug program out of the USA

The Beacon Journal will do what some of its retirees, including me, have done for years when they hit the donut hole in insurance coverage: Take the prescription business out of the country.

In my case and with other BJ retirees, we got our prescriptions from Canadian pharmacies, which often got their drugs from other countries around the world, at as little as 20% of the cost for the drugs in America. In my case, I saved about $2,000 each year for the 4 or 5 months after I hit the donut hole by going to Canada instead of getting the drugs from companies in the USA.

I suspect more American companies will be doing what BJ management will do, starting September 1, for those who sign up for the program. Once enough go outside the USA for their prescriptions, then American Big Pharma might feel the pinch and get the message about exorbitant prices that cost taxpayers and customers millions more than in any other country.

When I inquired about ONE pill would cost me for my prescription, it was $14.95. Since it’s a 30-day prescription, that would come to $448.50 for ONE of my nine prescriptions. You do the math x 9.

In order to pay for a monthly prescription for Nexium, the acid reflux drug, an insurer in the United States pays, on average, $215 per customer. The same prescription in the Netherlands costs $23.

According to the International Federation of Health Plans, Americans pay anywhere from two to six times more than the rest of the world for brand name prescription drugs.

A friend told me that his ONE prescription increased to $36,000 a year when Big Pharma jacked up the price 50%.

The Milan Pharmaceuticals’ case that aroused so much uproar when it jacked up the Epi-Pen cost, a life-saving need for children and others allergic to bee stings and other bad things out in our world, to $600 for a pair when it costs $206.55 in Canada.

Incredibly, Medicare is prohibited from negotiating drug prices. The Big Pharma lobby with its hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations made that happen.

Fortunately, I won the healthcare class action lawsuit I filed against the BJ (as did 50 retired printers and 4 other Guild retirees), so I pay only $2 for every 30-day prescription, generic or brand name. So the BJ offer doesn’t do much for me.

But if you didn’t win the lawsuit against the BJ, this new voluntary arrangement for drugs from a Tier 1 country (Canada, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand) means:

1.No co-payments for this prescription drug program ONLY.

2.No co-pays.

3.Medications must be tried for 30 days before ordering through ABJMeds.  

4.Allow 4 weeks for delivery.

If you didn’t get an application from the BJ, calls Human Resources Director Jay Hunter at (330) 996-3184.

EnvisionRx is the BJ’s prescription drugs vendor for 2016.

Like most companies, the BJ seeks bids each year to lower its cost for health care.

EnvisionRx has the advantage of being local, which makes it easier to deal with than the 2015 out-going vendor Express Scripts out of St. Louis.

EnvisionRx is in Twinsburg, 2181 E Aurora Road, phone (330) 405-8080.  

The mail order branch – Orchard Pharmaceutical Services -- is in North Canton, 7835 Freedom Ave NW. The Orchard web site is www.orchardrx.com The phone number is (800) 909-5171.

As with Express Scripts, the mail order prescription can be for 90 days, but if you use your local pharmacy (in my case, Walgreen’s), the prescriptions are limited to 30 days.

You save one-third the co-pay cost for 90 days by using Orchard rather your local pharmacy.

For those still alive who won the 2012 healthcare lawsuit against the BJ, getting their retirement day medical and prescription coverage restored to no less than their retirement-day coverage, the cost is minimal -- $2 to $5 for 30 days, or a savings of $2 to $5 for 90 days via mail order.

Former BJ Composing chief Dave White, who filed the original lawsuit in 2009 on behalf of retired printers, is deceased. His widow, retired BJ printer Gina White, still lives in their Venice, Florida home, where they moved after decades of living in nearby Sarasota.

John Olesky filed on behalf of Guild retirees.

45 retired printers and 5 Guild retirees won the lawsuit.

BJ retirees can get one free glucometer through EnvisionRx, which was created in 2001 and charges businesses a flat monthly fee per employee for its services.

Kevin Nagle is EnvisionRx’s chief operating officer.

Express Scripts, headquartered in St. Louis, has five buildings that occupy enough land for six football fields. Only 3% of its 110,000 prescriptions a day are handled by humans. Robotics never sleep, never take bathroom breaks and don’t require health care (ironic, huh?) or pensions.

EnvisionRx is a transparency operation. Businesses are told what discounts EnvisionRx is getting because of volume.

Express Scripts is not a transparency operation, and claims it is “the voice for 100 million customers.”

Determining actual drug costs is like plunging headfirst deep into quicksand without goggles. But the bottom line is: Handling your prescriptions brings in $250 billion a year for the companies that do it. Those pills you take make a lot of fat cats very happy. And, to be fair, they help keep you healthy.

New year, new Rx vendor for BJ

There are three things you can be sure of:

1. Death.

2. Taxes.

3. The BJ changes medical vendors for the new year.

So it’s nothing alarming or new to get the notification that EnvisionRx in Twinsburg will be handling prescription drugs for BJ retirees. And it’s understandable. Every year every company seeks bids from competing vendors and takes the one that the company thinks will be least costly to it.

EnvisionRX affiliate Orchard Pharmaceutical Services in North Canton will handle the mail-order prescriptions. You need to fill out the enrollment form, of course, and mail it in.

I checked the list of approved local pharmacies you can use and my Walgreen’s Drug Store on Howe Avenue in Cuyahoga Falls is on the list, so that shouldn’t be a problem either. You can go online to the EnvisionRX web site and see if your local drug store is on the approved list.

Then there’s ABJMeds, which will get the drugs from Canada, United Kingdom, Australia or New Zealand, just as I did for years after I hit the donut hole each year. It saved me thousands of dollars on name-brand drugs, which are outlandishly priced if you buy them in America.

As for the survivors among the 50 BJ retired printers and Guild retirees who won the 2012 healthcare lawsuit, there should NOT be any changes in benefits. But I emailed the Chandra law firm in Cleveland that won the lawsuit for the 50 retirees a copy of the BJ letter, just in case. Chandra assures me that the BJ attorneys will be courteously reminded that they cannot change benefits for the healthcare lawsuit survivors.

If you are among those who won the lawsuit, and there are ANY changes in your benefits from what you are getting now, email me at jo4wvu@neo.rr.com or phone me at (330) 388-4466 so I can alert the Chandra law firm.

The doctor and hospital benefits are paid through Medicare and AARP secondary coverage for the healthcare lawsuit winners. The BJ pays the premiums for the AARP coverage. There should be no change in that situation for the retirees who won the lawsuit.

The late Dave White, once BJ Composing foreman, filed the first healthcare lawsuit against the BJ, in 2009. Newsroom retiree John Olesky filed on behalf of the Guild retirees.

In 2012 U.S. District Judge David Dowd ordered the reimbursements and restoration of healthcare benefits at least equal to the retirement-day benefits the printers and Guild retirees had. That included the $2 co-pay for Guild retiree prescriptions and $5 co-pay for the retired printers.

As part of the settlement, the BJ paid the retirees’ legal costs by cutting a check to the Chandra law firm for $772,500.

The original 50 retirees in the lawsuit:

Gina White, of Venice, Florida, who with the late Dave White, her husband, began the lawsuit on behalf of the printers; Bob and Linda Abbott, Massillon; Ruth and Tom West, Rittman; Sid Sprague, Loveland, Colorado; Hugh and Sharon Downing, The Villages, Florida; Larnie and Stephanie Greene, Hartville; Joe Catalano, Akron; Lloyd and Claudine Bigelow, Cuyahoga Falls; John Costello, Akron; Dick Gresock, Medina; Henry and Kathleen Heinbuck, North Canton; Denzil Parker, Wadsworth; Rita Reeves, Akron; Bob Walker, Medina; Cecil and Josephine Santaferro, Akron; Isabel Watson (Blanton’s widow), Naples, Florida; Janice Hogg (Trammel’s widow), Waynesville, North Carolina; Russ and Martel Bendel, Wadsworth; Eunice and Bonnie Collins, Copley; Richard and Patricia Fair, Akron; Marjorie Hanna, Wadsworth; Bob Kendall, Berlin Center; Harriet Ledbetter, Canton; Norm and Naomi Mattern, Wellsville; Charles O’Neill, Akron; Fred Pollack, Akron; Don Reppart, North Canton; Ron Sanderlin, Canton; Charles Stadelman, Tallmadge; and Ray and Amaryllis Wolfe, Greentown.

Guild retirees John Olesky, of Tallmadge, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Guild retirees; retired reporter Dick McBane, Lilburn, Georgia; maintenance retiree Harold Bailey and wife Elizabeth, Kent; copy desk retiree Dick McLinden, North Canton, and retired photographer Don Roese, Cuyahoga Falls.

McLinden passed away in 2015, Reppart in 2013 and Dave White in 2012. There may be others on this list who are deceased. If they are, let me know at jo4wvu@neo.rr.com and I’ll update my records.

Thanks for the $1.6 million, BJ!

It’s good to realize that paychecks and pension checks are not all that we get from our days at the Beacon Journal.

Health care, as everyone in America knows, is a tremendous perk.

In 2013 the BJ spent $1,632,402 on health care for its employees and retirees. That’s $1.6 million.

Fair is fair, even from a rabid union man like me.

BJ prescription coverage meets Obamacare standards

The Beacon Journal's prescription coverage is considered "Creditable Coverage" under Obamacare, the BJ reports, and BJ retirees can keep the coverage and not have to pay a higher premium penalty if they later decide to join a Medicare drug plan.

The letters began arriving today to BJ retirees.

The 50 retired printers and Guild members who won the healthcare lawsuit against the BJ have different, better coverage -- $5 co-pay for the printers and $2 co-pay for the Guild retirees. They also have both Medicare and AARP Supplemental medical coverage for substantially better terms than retirees not benefitting from the lawsuit, saving most of the lawsuit winners thousands of dollars a year.