The Georgia Baptist Health Care Ministry Foundation plans to help Georgia Baptist Mission Board retirees who will lose insurance benefits as of Dec. 31. The Baptist Paper reported the news of the elimination of the longtime benefit Nov. 3.
But during last night’s (Nov. 7) inspirational rally kicking off the Georgia Baptist Convention’s annual meeting Nov. 8–9, GBMB executive director Thomas Hammond and foundation executive director Larry Wynn announced the provision. While the specifics are not yet clear as to how the plan will work, the foundation board voted unanimously in early November, according to a Nov. 7 article in The Christian Index.
“During this entire process our team continued asking God to give us wisdom in every decision and to clearly show us how to best help our retirees,” Hammond said in The Christian Index article. “We also prayed for God to provide a way for our retirees to have their specific needs met.”
Retirees were notified of the elimination of the insurance benefit in mid-September but the information was not made public until the release of a Nov. 1 report by Baptist News Global.
About 170 retirees receive the insurance-related benefit at an overall cost of between $700,000 and $1 million per year, according to The Christian Index article.
Other reports also indicate older retirees are under a different plan than more recent retirees. The older group receives full coverage, while the more recent group receives a stipend up to $3,500 a year, but the foundation report did not indicate how the coverage will look going forward.
Current reports indicate some funding will be provided to retirees in 2022 by the GBMB and the foundation will step in starting in 2023, but the ability to provide insurance-related stipend grants will need to be reviewed and renewed on an annual basis.
A BNG article from earlier this morning (Nov. 8) reports the GBMB executive committee will address the information today.
