Monessen: Orzechowski answers charges on insurance plan
By KRISTIE LINDEN
klinden@yourmvi.com
For the past couple of months, some members of Monessen council have leveled accusations against another member, alleging corruption relating to the city’s former health insurance carrier.
In particular, Mayor Matt Shorraw and Councilman Don Gregor have been very vocal about their claims, alleging decisions were made during the contract negotiation in 2019 that were not for the benefit of the city, but may have benefited someone else.
The target of those claims has been almost exclusively Councilman Tony Orzechowski.
Whenever those claims have been made, they’ve been followed up with questions asking only Orzechowski why he made the decisions he made or why the contract was written the way it was or why council chose the health plan it had.
One of the major questions Gregor had was why the insurance contract kept retired employees who are Medicare eligible on full-coverage insurance packages, costing the city an extra $400 per person each month.
Gregor also alleged that Orzechowski chose to move 25 Medicare retirees to the full-coverage plan, a move that he said would have cost the city “an extra $450,000 over the contract.” Gregor asked Orzechowski who benefited from that decision.
In an attempt to gather the information that would answer those questions, Orzechowski said he reached out to representatives of Benecon-Pennsylvania Municipal Health Insurance Cooperative and the insurance brokers who arranged the deal.
In June 2019, Monessen hired Engle-Hambright and Davies as its insurance broker in a move that, at the time, was supposed to provide the city with more benefits at about half the cost for all its insurance needs.
EHD recommended Benecon Group to oversee the health insurance, specifically the debit cards used by employees. At the time, EHD employee Jason Seltzer said in a presentation before council that “Benecon brings transparency to the table that is light years ahead of what you’re getting currently,” adding the move would save the city another $6,500 annually.
Seltzer also said at that meeting in 2019 that EHD would look for more cost-effective health insurance when it was time for employees to make their annual renewals.
Tuesday night, Orzechowski said he reached out to Seltzer and Marlana Ricci from Benecon and received several emails with information answering Gregor’s questions.
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