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Liquidation putting an end to the company's coverage

Tuesday, March 19, 2002

By Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

LTV Steel Co. retirees and spouses yesterday swamped a small hall in Mount Oliver, worried about what they'll do when their company-paid health-care coverage ends at the end of this month.

	Seventy-seven year-old Ralph and Loraine Rice, left, of Charleroi try to answer a question being asked by Else Resosky of Baldwin, who was waiting in line to enter the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 456 for a session explaining the health insurance options for LTV Steel retirees. (Bill Wade/Post-Gazette)

Far more elderly people than expected showed up at the meeting to hear health insurers present other options for care that, until LTV recently underwent bankruptcy liquidation, the retirees didn't have to think much about.

"They're angry," Jim Centner, director of SOAR, the Steelworker Organization of Active Retirees, said as he blocked hundreds of people from entering the already-filled meeting hall. "This is what happens when you take their health care away."

A similar meeting last week in Monaca, Beaver County, also drew several hundred more people than there were seats.

The Cleveland-based steelmaker's bankruptcy and liquidation is forcing approximately 80,000 LTV retirees to shop for replacement health-care coverage, including an estimated 12,000 who live in Western Pennsylvania and worked for LTV in Pittsburgh or Aliquippa.

Many who were able to get into the meetings left discouraged about the amount of premiums they will have to pay to get coverage similar to what they had under LTV's contracts with the United Steelworkers union.

James Gilliam, 66, of Highland Park, blamed the company, the union and the government.

"We should have had this for the rest of our lives," Gilliam, who worked 35 years for LTV in Pittsburgh, said as he stood outside the hall. "They're messing us over, treating us like animals."

Separate meetings were held for retirees who are 65 or older and eligible for Medicare coverage and for those who are under 65. The younger group faces much higher premiums than those who qualify for Medicare coverage and need Medicare HMOs or supplemental plans.

Ed Ribarchak, 60, said coverage for himself and his wife, Carol, 56, will cost approximately $1,300 a month if he buys a plan similar to the one that LTV had provided. He retired with 40 years of service.

"How long do you think the couple bucks I saved over the years will last?" he asked as he waited in line to hear a presentation from Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield. "I give it about three years and then I'm going on welfare."

Ribarchak knows that LTV is one of dozens of steel companies that have sought bankruptcy court protection in recent years and that other firms may soon follow in LTV's footsteps and eliminate retiree benefits with court approval.

"When they tell you to stand up for the Pledge of Allegiance, you don't feel like it," he said.

Some retirees also face losing some of their pension benefits once those programs are taken over by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., the federal agency that insures private pension plans.

John Kuhn, a 60-year-old retiree from LTV's coke plant in Hazelwood, will likely lose a $400 monthly pension supplement he received as an early retirement incentive when the plant closed. That would cut his pension to about $428 a month.

Kuhn, who moved to rural Crawford County after leaving LTV, figures his health insurance coverage will cost him more than the amount of his reduced monthly pension check if he is accepted into a plan with his heart condition,

"You're left with nothing," said his wife, Ruth. "It's terrible."