It is with a combined sense of disappointment and accomplishment that we announce the retirement of a dear colleague. Dr. Larry DeGroat, MDA president during 2016-17 and former chair of MDA Insurance & Financial Group, on May 31 announced his retirement from the Boards of both MDA Insurance & Financial Group and the MDA Health Plan.
DeGroat served as an MDA Insurance committee member and Board member for an impressive amount of time — 31 years.
Craig Start, MDA Insurance president, noted DeGroat’s service with the MDA subsidiary, over the past three decades. “Larry has served our for-profit subsidiary as a member and chair of the IFG Insurance committee, member and chair of the IFG  board and member and chair of the MDA Health Plan for over 31 years. During that time IFG has gone from returning under $100,000 a year to the MDA to over $1.8 million last year. At the same time, we have added dozens of new programs and member benefits that will continue to serve MDA members for many years to come. Perhaps our crown jewel has been the MDA Health Plan, which we have all reinvented three or four times over those years. This ultimately positioned us to create a MEWA and continue to offer a true MDA member benefit in the face of the Affordable Care Act which made fully insured Association Health Plans untenable.”
 Dr. DeGroat was beloved by MDA staff and will be dearly missed. We wish him well in his future endeavors!