Officials hope enterprise zone softens loss of claims center

Marysville and Yuba County officials hope incentives from the Yuba-Sutter Enterprise Zone will soften the blow when workers at a Medicare claims center lose their jobs in June.

Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services gave notice to 220 employees at Marysville’s NHIC One-Step Center on J Street last week that the contract keeping them afloat will not be renewed.

The Medicare claims-processing contract, which NHIC has held since 1996, has been awarded to a subsidiary of BlueCross BlueShield.

“I hate to see those jobs go,” said Marysville City Councilman Ben Wirtschafter. “It hurts us all.”

The Marysville NHIC workers, according to Yuba County Supervisor John Nicoletti, currently earn between $9 and $15 per hour.

“We’ll have to make efforts to recruit (new businesses),” Nicoletti said at a joint city/county meeting late last week.

The Yuba-Sutter Enterprise Zone, which offers tax breaks, hiring vouchers and other incentives to new business and nonprofit ventures in the Mid-Valley, will be expected to play a major role in helping offset the loss of NHIC, Nicoletti said.

State-designated enterprise zones like Yuba-Sutter, which includes the cities of Marysville, Yuba City and both Yuba and Sutter counties are meant to help economically depressed areas through such incentives.

Appeal-Democrat reporter Nancy Pasternack can be reached at 749-4712. You may also e-mail her at npasternack@appeal-democrat.com