Important Notice on the Medco Annual Limit

Welfare Fund members recently received a letter about their Medco prescription drug coverage. The plan has a $10,000 annual maximum per individual. Last year's health care reform legislation required that such caps on coverage be lifted. The Fund looked at what removing the annual cap would mean in financial terms, and saw that it would add considerable costs to our providing drug coverage to our members.

However, the law allows organizations such as the Fund to apply for waivers to this requirement. The Fund applied for such an exemption and was granted a waiver by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that allows the $10,000 annual limit on individual drug coverage to remain in place for one year. At the end of the year, the Fund will apply again.

The upshot of the quite complicated letter that the Fund was required by law to send to our members is that the Medco prescription drug plan is not changing. The $10,000 annual limit on coverage remains in place.

Our members who are concerned by that limit may explore other health coverage at HealthCare.gov.