Township hit by health-care hike

Thirty-six percent. A million dollars over the next two years.
Those were the numbers supplied to the Orion Township Board of Trustees when Supervisor Matthew Gibb disclosed news of 2011 health plan rates announced by Blue Cross and Blue Shield.
“I was shocked and dismayed by Blue Cross,” Gibb said during the board’s regular meeting Oct. 18. “It is somewhat grotesque the way they are treating the public here in Michigan.”
But Gibb said he wasn’t in the business of “paying for health care plans that go up 36 percent.”
“We will aggressively make sure (township employees) are taken care of, but this is a real challenge for us as a community,” he said, facetiously, noting the health care giant was “kind enough” to announce the rate hike just 10 days before 2011 enrollment begins.
Gibb told the board he’d likely be calling a special meeting to address the issue in the days or weeks ahead.
“This is an eye-opener,” he said. This is the ramification of people who have this ideology but don’t understand the actual costs involved. They can do things in Washington and have all these grandiose speeches, but the rubber meets the road here as it does in other communities.”