Pay cuts in the mail (10/24/02)

The dreaded healthcare pay-cut notices have been showing up in mailboxes this week, showing us just how much more we are going to be paying for health insurance starting in January. If you have family coverage through Group Health your monthly premium increases $81 or $972 for the year. Uniform Med family plans will cost $372 more next year. Premera Blue Cross subscribers pay an additional $1,332 in premiums.

And that is just the start. Buried in the fine print are additional takeaways in the form of higher co-pays and deductibles and reduced coverage. Look for radical changes in some of the pharmacy charges. Not even the fine print is telling the whole story since drug costs are going up as coverage is reduced.

This will hit some families very hard. Since the cuts are uniform for all faculty and staff, those with small paychecks will suffer most. How will a food-service worker or custodian earning $19,000 a year absorb this?

AAUP is joining with SEIU Local 925 which represents 5,000 classified staff in calling on the University to take steps to help its employees. The SEIU proposal has two elements:

1)With its own employees, the UW should consider absorbing some portion of healthcare cost increases, rather than passing them all on to faculty and staff.

2)In the upcoming legislative session, the UW should work with labor, community and religious organizations to pass legislation to lower healthcare costs overall, including a Prescription Drug bill.

The second clause is quite important. Last year, a bill that would have pooled the buying power of state agencies and insurance companies in order to contain drug costs failed by just one vote. The University of Washington for some reason refused to join the proponents of the measure. This year we want the UW to be part of the team trying to lower prescription drug costs.

The Faculty Senate is meeting today and will consider a resolution endorsing the SEIU proposal.