Statement of University Advisory Council Action: Fall 2001
Resolution to Retain or Improve Existing Health Care Benefits for WCU faculty and staff
Whereas the premium for the State Health Plan is proposed to increase 22% for each employee who covers their dependents;
Whereas the deductible and maximum out-of-pocket expenses are proposed to increase;
Whereas the amount paid to providers is proposed to be decreased, most probably resulting in additional employee out-of-pocket expenses;
Whereas two years ago, health insurance premium increases resulted in a cut in take home pay for employees earning less than $25,000.00 and covering dependents, furthermore, current forecast indications are the number of negatively impacted employees will be even greater, even if a Legislative Increase is granted, due to the increased cost of this Health Care "Benefit";
Whereas eroding benefits make it exceedingly difficult to retain and recruit high quality faculty and staff;
Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved that the University Advisory Council of Western Carolina University publicly states their strongest support for the continuous efforts of President Broad to work with the North Carolina Legislature to maintain and improve the existing benefits for the faculty and staff of the University of North Carolina.
Health Benefits Forum in Planning Stages, March 2002
Plans are in the works for yet another health benefits forum at WCU this spring. The UAC has asked Keith Stiles to chair a committee to organize this activity with the original plan to invite our state legislators for information sharing and dialog on this very important issue. The Committee after further reflection and study of the issue has instead decided to hold two events, one this spring and another scheduled for fall.
At the spring event we hope to invite Ron Penney, Vice President for Human Resources, Office of the President, and Jack Walker the Director of the State Health Insurance Plan. The plan is to hold a Town Hall meeting to learn future and current plans concerning our health plan and to allow time for the sharing of ideas and concerns. The committee, working with the Office of Human Resources will conduct background research into the impact of our current plan on employees with family coverage and will share that information with these officials.
Following the fall elections and prior to the beginning of the legislative long session, the committee plans to invite our local representatives to a discussion with representatives of campus constituencies to again discuss health care issues and explore opportunities and solutions.
Hopefully, these combined efforts will highlight our concerns with the current health care options and provide insight into possible solutions.
May 2002 Report
Our initial analysis of the health insurance enrollment changes from October, November, and December of 2001 indicated that the changes in coverage were occurring among all of our employees instead of clustering among the lowest salary grades as we had suspected. After a meeting with Peg Shafer, we gained a better understanding about why changes in health coverage were not occurring as initially expected.
Peg provided some insights reminding us that the lack of wholesale changes did not indicate that people had not considered dropping or altering their coverage. Rather, the lack of large numbers of altered enrollments was due to a complicated set of factors including a lack of expertise concerning health care issues, a lack of time to actually investigate alternatives, a two month wait to obtain guaranteed outside health coverage, and others. Employees with Family Coverage actually saw a decline in their incomes ($625 cost of living increase - $1,011.84 increase in health insurance premium for the year). Basically, our benefits package is harming our ability to recruit new faculty. And, over the long-term, it will also our ability to recruit new staff employees especially in high tech fields.
|
