September 12, 2007

 

Re: An Important Message on 2008 Healthcare Enrollment and Choices

For Management Retirees

 

 

Dear LRO Member, Lucent Retirees and All Interested Parties,

 

In July of this year, Alcatel-Lucent sent a letter to management retirees that the LRO interprets as saying serious changes are going to happen to retirement healthcare and prescription drug benefits for 2008.   This message is to update you on the situation and to strongly suggest you consider specific actions regarding how you can prepare for possible outcomes in the coming weeks and months.

 

The key text from the Alcatel-Lucent letter to management retirees stated:

 

"We encourage you to explore other benefit options you may have available to you such as coverage through a spouse's employer, commercial coverage or offerings through associations such as AARP….”

 

In addition to the urging by Alcatel-Lucent that we “explore other benefits options….”, the LRO has since learned that Alcatel-Lucent plans to issue another letter about 2008 benefits plans around October 1^st and send out the 2008 enrollment information around November 1^st.   The LRO was also recently made aware that there appears to be issues tied to what Alcatel-Lucent is considering to propose to you that require Federal Government approvals that may indeed cause delays in the release of the enrollment packages and critical related materials. 

 

We are, as of yet, unclear as to what these significant changes may be. But we have expressed to Alcatel-Lucent and wish to share with you these facts as well as the fundamental concern that any/all such delays will only serve to compress and, possibly, prevent your having adequate time in which to make the necessary evaluations, choices, and comparisons. It is important for you to have the time to perform the appropriate due diligence as it may impact your own, highly personalized needs for such care, when combined with your ability to pay/afford it on your retirement income and in the context of the general complexity of the Healthcare and Prescription "Marketplace", per se.

 

While waiting for the NEXT shoe to be dropped by Alcatel-Lucent and in preparation for these later dates, and motivated by the suggestion by Alcatel-Lucent to “explore other benefit options…” we suggest that you consider taking the following actions/steps NOW:

 

·        First: Immediately make sure that your access to the necessary Hewitt Web Site, http://resources.hewitt.com/lucent/, works for you and that your User ID and Pin work.  If it does not, or you do not have your access information available, contact the Lucent Benefits Center (1-888-232-4111 or 1-847-883-0660 for outside of the United States), as soon as possible since there is an inherent delay to have such access reset and to allow adequate time to receive the information in the mail. 

 

·        Second: Start contacting alternative healthcare companies NOW if you feel that individual Medicare or non-Medicare health plans might be a better choice than the Lucent plan going forward. It can take several weeks between requesting information, filing paperwork, and getting responses and you want to ensure you have the information from alternative healthcare plans available in time to compare to the Lucent plan(s).

 

·        Third: Visit the LRO web site to access the Benefits Team information at http://www.lucentretirees.com/BenefitsTeam/, where there is information available to assist you in obtaining information about alternative healthcare plans.

 

·        Fourth: Depending on your specific situation, plan NOT to change your Lucent enrollment status AT ALL, regardless of the changes proposed if the period you are asked to reply within is too short for you and/or complicates other important issues you face in the coming year.

 

·        Fifth: Remember the pertinent rules of the current Alcatel- Lucent benefits enrollment policy in this regard that needs to be understood as both a caveat and official disclaimer is that you can ALWAYS cancel your Alcatel-Lucent benefits plan within the coming year BUT you can only re-enroll in the company plan during the annual enrollment period. Also, retirees who have Grandfathered Class II Dependents must take action during open enrollment if they choose to continue to have their Grandfathered Class II Dependents covered under the Alcatel-Lucent plan. 

 

Please understand that in parallel to Alcatel-Lucent and prompted by such advice, our own LRO Benefits Team in the upcoming Fall newsletter offers that “the BT's (LRO-Benefits Team) efforts will continue to make a concerted effort to directly engage, if at all possible, with Alcatel-Lucent’s corporate leadership and their Benefits professionals.”

 

But, regardless of what might be the success of that outcome we see clearly that our goals are to help you help yourself and, wherever possible, to make this important process as clear and uncomplicated as possible.

 

OUR ACTIONS need to produce results that are best suited to empowering you to act promptly and in an informed manner that will be specific to your and your dependents' particular healthcare, financial, personal needs.”

 

It is our opinion on the LRO Benefits Team that Alcatel-Lucent should NOT unduly compress your timeline and hence your capability to make these important decisions regardless of their justifications and that you should not act without the right tools, information and consultation time. They could also, possibly, seek extensions of or existing plan coverage and /or an extension for the 2007/2008 enrollment period(s) if they so chose to as an accommodation for their present delays.

 

We want you to know that you do have the alternative not to act under such pressure as may in fact, regrettably occur.  The LRO Benefits Team will do what we can to make available other tools and resources to fill in the blanks if/as the need arises and the proper evaluation time can be found.

Sincerely,

 

Jerry Hanley, Benefits Team Chair