Government to move ‘pre-1992 State pensioners’ to GEMS

National Treasury has decided to migrate a group of State pensioners who retired before 1992 to the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) with effect from 1 April 2012. These pensioners received a letter from National Treasury notifying them of th

Medihelp’s CEO, Anton Rijnen expressed his concern about moving pensioners at an advanced age to another scheme at such short notice. As per agreement with Government, these pensioners are entitled to certain benefits which includes that National Treasury pays their medical aid membership contributions in full.

“These pensioners have been some of Medihelp’s most loyal supporters and we are concerned how the migration to GEMS will affect them emotionally. This is particularly important if their advanced age, state of health, emotional well-being, the importance of having medical scheme coverage at this point in their lives, and being members of Medihelp for most of their lives are taken into account. We will do our utmost to assist in making the transition to GEMS as smooth as possible for these members,” he says.

According to Rijnen the migration of the pensioners to GEMS will not affect the performance of Medihelp’s current growth options and will have a positive effect on the Scheme’s average age. “Over the past few years Medihelp has been one of the few medical schemes that have managed organic growth whilst reducing the average age of its membership. The pensioner migration will further reduce the Scheme’s average age by approximately 4 years, decreasing the average age of the number of lives covered from 40.4 years to 37.6 years at the time of migration. This will bring Medihelp’s average age in line with that of the industry,” he says.