 |
FROM YOUR EDITOR
There sure has been a lot of controversy about our Health Care Plan. At this time the proposed Health Care Plan has been voted down by our membership and our union, ASEA, is back at the negotiating table wit the administration. A federal mediator is involved in helping both sides reach agreement on the Health Benefit issues.
Meantime, your editor received the following articles which reflects the frustration experienced by our membership on such an important issue:
HEALTH CARE CHOICE by Larry Rabideau
The choice is not clear. The choices are not good. It comes down to your own personal choice as to which devil you want to dance with.
Here are the main points on the Health Care Plan from this member’s viewpoint.
The existing plan, which is basically crappy, will cost you $109 and some change out of your pocket. For that money you get the same crappy service. Unsettled claims, denied claims, and slow claims.
You also have the benefit of knowing there is no end in sight and the state will continue to want to pay less, so you will have to pay more and more – did I mention you will continue to pay more year after year….
The alternative is that you pay less out of your pocket. The plan remains basically the same with two notable exceptions:
And, I would not want to go to the Alaska Regional Hospital, especially not under the management of Columbia who recently bought them. But Hey, that’s me.
As for the Laborer’s Health Trust administering the plan, I have no problem there. Our monies will be kept separate and our people will be on the Board of Trustees that watch out for our monies and how they are used.
The big advantage to the plan is that we have a way to control costs. We will not be under the state’s control of the plan. In three years we may be able to modify our plan to allow more choice to the membership. But the number one reason to switch is that the Reserves will be ours.
What are reserves? Reserves are the monies you take in minus the monies you pay out. We had reserves a couple of years ago totaling $16 million. We now have maybe $1 million. What happened to the money? The Legislature spent it. Legally they could and they did. Now there isn’t enough money to pay our insurance bills.
That is the best reason to get out from under the State’s management of our Health Plan- they stole our money and they can and no doubt will do it again and again.
So the choice is yours. Pay more now and forever get a crappy plan or take restrictive options and not pay as much out of your pocket, and be bound by yet another crappy plan…but not controlled by the state and state legislators.
The third choice is to strike, shut down the state and force them to give you back a decent Health Care Plan and to fully fund the plan.
Some choices. If there is any bright spot n all these poor choices, under the new plan we keep the reserves and eventually will have enough reserves built up to modify the plan the way it works best for our members, if you are willing to wait that long.
|
The Alaska State Employees Association membership was given a choice in mid April. To pay a estimated additional $109.50 to retain our present level of health care or accept significant restrictions on who we take our family to and what we will pay for services when we get there. I’ve been asked to give you my thoughts on this “choice”. I’ve been a state employee for 10 years and was very concerned when I heard our health care was in peril.
The first time I heard about this problem I received a Solidarity Update news letter and a booklet titled “Questions and Answers to Your Health Insurance and Future” and was told “you should probably read this, there is a vote next week”. This booklet said things like “We see no negatives” and “By voting “yes” you and your family members will still have access to the coverage and security you now enjoy.”
I was told in these documents we must “dodge the bullet” and vote for this new plan, we had little time to make this decision, and something had to be decided right away before the legislature was gone. It was so urgent that some of us were informed of this “bullet” the same day we were being asked to vote.
Rush, Rush!!! Vote yes!!! This was my Union telling me this. At first blush, voting for this new plan sounded like the only real choice, the only sane thing to do.
I was lucky, our office got this information on Friday, days before some of our members, and I got a chance to read over the weekend about “the bullet”. As I read the information it became clear to me that this was much more than a shift in health plan, and a vote yes was far from the “same coverage and security” I now enjoy.
As I read things like the preferred provider was Alaska Regional Hospital, not Providence. I started thinking of the ear specialist my son goes to and the added cost of the upcoming surgery he will perform on my son. What alternative would I have. Under this plan if I want 80% coverage I would need to take my son to another specialist at Columbia. However, my family has spent a lot of time to assure that we have the very best doctor to work on my son’s ears. Do I now take second best to save 20%? I don’t think so.
The more I thought about it the more I realized that the only doctors we see are from Providence, from the heart surgeon that performed my Dad’s bypass surgery to my wife’s OBGYN.
I also read about the increased cost for the prescription medication purchased for my family, antibiotics, ear drops, pain medication. It all adds up to some significant money. Well, Significant to me. Remember, they “saw no negatives”.
So, by Monday I had a list of questions and wanted to know more about how we got here. Clearly I didn’t agree with our representatives that were pushing this plan. I saw plenty of negatives for me and wanted to know more about this plan and any alternatives. So, I went to the meeting to have my questions answered, make up my mind, and vote.
After a presentation from the consultant who brokered this deal and a long list of questions asked by the membership I learned a few things.
I learned that this “bullet” left the gun back in December when the union was informed the premiums from NYLCare were going up and the state would not be covering the difference. After the Laborers Trust, the State of Alaska, and our Union figured out the details… we found out in mid April. April is not the time to inform the ones most effected by this plan when our union knew of the problem since December. And then to ask us to hurry up and vote yes doesn’t show a lot of respect. Why wasn’t the alarm sounded back in February instead of mid April that we had a major problem to solve with our health care? Why wasn’t any other alternatives explored before latching our health care future on this consultant and this trust?
Yes, no other alternatives were considered by our committee back in February. Why not? Clearly a decision of this magnitude should be an informed one. Truly, I expected them to say “Oh yes we looked at many plans and this one is the best one we could find”. Those on the stage didn’t even blink an eye. They told us that they asked another union who handled their Trust. And that was it. Decision made.
Our health care is worth a lot to our members, but to the plan provider it represents a opportunity to handle over 45 Million dollars per year. And no other alternatives were considered? Why not? It seems every question uncovered more questions. When the meeting was suppose to be over the questions raged on, some answered by the consultant.
The consultant was asked “If this fails could we look at it again for next year?” His reply was “No, not with this trust.” He made it sound like we were asking him, or the trust, to pay our electric bill. Having a additional 7200 people paying into this trust, a total in excess of 45 million dollars per year, was more of a burden than a benefit? I’ve seen this attitude before, but only in car salesmen.
I have heard some people say that we will be better off with our own plan that does not involve the state. I agree it would be much better to have the kind of control and freedom being free of the state would allow. However, why is the state so anxious to get rid of health care? It occurs to me that when they mismanaged our money, be it healthcare or SBS funds, we have a opportunity to recover those funds from the state. We did it with SBS. Without the state’s involvement, this would not be a option. Rushing I think is the last thing we should be doing.
In short this meeting proved two things to me. First, our committee had not done their homework before arranging this trust deal. Second, they had not informed us of this major “bullet” or was it a “train wreck”, in time for us to have a meaningful opinion. So, the real decision was negotiate and probably pay higher premiums with the state or go with the union’s questionable decisions. I didn’t trust these guys: the State, or especially the consultant with all the answers, and I didn’t like this new plan. So, I chose as 3 out of 4 of you did. I voted against this plan.
But what now. We have voted down the new plan. Will we go back and do this right? Will the committee carefully consider our options: PPO, HMO, indemnity plan, or to self insure? Will we be kept informed as the milestones occur? I hope we can expect a better result than either of these two options. I’ve read “ the days of cradle to grave 100% health coverage is a thing of the past”, but if we don’t shoot for it we will never get what the state employee deserves: the best health care available.
Editor’s Note: It’s a difficult issue to resolve. We have good people (your fellow members) working hard as volunteers to try and reach an agreement. It’s a thankless job and you can all help by giving them your support in their ongoing efforts.
 |
Let’s talk Contract Negotiations. Last time we spent over a million dollars of our dues money and strung out negotiations for months and months. What did we get for that money? A Shitty Contract. You are paying more for less Health Care and I can’t really see any pluses in our column unless your count COLAs that the Legislature doesn’t want to fund.
What will we get this time? More crap. Do you think the state will us anything? For one thing, the price of oil is down to the lowest it has been in years, so where will the money come from to pay for anything they might give us or have to give us?
Face it, it membership is too cowardly to strike. That leaves the negotiators virtually powerless. Without a strike or the threat of a strike you get bupkis- nothing- nada- zilch.
So what can we ask for what we might get? Parity. Let’s make our contract equal to the Supervisor’s union. Most notably, Personal Leave Conversion at 60%, the same as the supervisors.
That is something that benefits us and is a win for the State. No longer do they have two separate accounting systems, we are one big unhappy family under one set of rules.
The Anchorage Chapter, thanks to a technically adept editor of this newsletter and his support team, have put together a survey form on the WEB. Access the Chapter WEBsite and let the negotiators know what you want. There is a survey there to let your wants and wishes be known. It is OK (per the union) to use the Internet under the same restrictions as using your phone to call the union-on your breaks or after-hours.
If you feel that I am too harsh in my assessment about the membership’s willingness to stand up for issues and bargaining points- put your comments on the survey.
If you are willing to strike for your issues- put your comments on the survey.
If you are, in fact, with the majority of the membership and fearful of losing your job and too timid to stand up and shut down the state (which we have the power to do), then don’t bother with the survey- take what the negotiators can get and be quiet.
Our Chapter WEB address is: http://www.alaska.net/~aseaanch
ANNOUCEMENTS:
Babysitting/GGU Meetings. At the last GGU meeting on April 8th, it was discussed and voted on that we discontinue our baby-sitting services due to lack of members bringing their children to the meetings. However, if you are planning on coming to the GGU meeting and are in need of baby-sitting service, please call the Chapter Office (Ph# 274-9300) and leave a message the Monday before the scheduled meeting so we can make arrangements to have someone there.
This change does not affect the Stewards baby-sitting arrangements. The Steward meetings will continue to provide baby-sitting services.
Genie Smith, the Secretary on our Anchorage Chapter Board, will be retiring at the end of May from state government service. Our best wishes to Genie upon her retirement.
At this time there are openings for three positions on the Anchorage Chapter Board…one of those positions being the position of Secretary. We’re asking for good people to step forward and serve on this Board.
There will be no Anchorage Chapter membership meeting for the months of June and August. There will be an ASEA Anchorage Chapter Summer picnic held sometime in the month of July. This summer picnic will double up as our membership meeting for the month of July.
