The increase in deductible is actually a good thing, on balance, and many will benefit in exchange for that extra $100 collectively shared by all of us.
Here's why: the university was benefiting by not having to pay out on drug claims not filed. Many people were not submitting their drug claims for reimbursement, simply because of the paperwork. The "hassle factor" is well-documented in the literature as a mechanism used by insurance companies and employers to deter beneficiaries from filing claims, thereby saving money for the insurers/employers. With direct pay, the benefit is incurred immediately.
The nature of insurance is that risk is distributed over the whole pool, including the currently healthy who may benefit less. However, health is unpredictable, and the moment one needs care, or in this case, medication, the benefit increases. This protects people who are too sick to deal with filing. It's likely to cost the university more because now all eligible claims will be reimbursed to all beneficiaries.
You may be interested to know that
public Medicare costs over the past 35 years have been remarkably stable at about 4-5% of Canada's GDP, but
private costs, and in particular prescription drug costs that are not covered under Medicare, are what is driving total health expenditure (public + private) in Canada (see attached paper "Neat, Plausible, and Wrong" written by Canadian Doctors for Medicare, with the disclaimer that I'm their health policy advisor).
Hope that helps.
Best,
Karen
From: "George Kirczenow" <kirczeno@sfu.ca>
To: academic-discussion@sfu.ca
Sent: Sunday, December 2, 2012 3:58:57 PM
Subject: Fwd: Bargaining Update 2012-11-30; Negotiations end without agreement on monetary proposals; off to arbitration.
Can anyone explain why increasing the health benefits deductible "from the current $25/family to $125/family
in exchange for the provision of a drug card (no more filling out those forms to get reimbursement)
and coverage of contraceptives" is supposed to be a good thing? Are we getting good value
for the $100 per year that we are giving up?
Begin forwarded message:
> From: carl schwarz <cschwarz@stat.sfu.ca>
> Subject: Bargaining Update 2012-11-30; Negotiations end without agreement on monetary proposals; off to arbitration.
> Date: December 1, 2012 10:02:59 PM PST
> To: sfufa-a-z@sfu.ca
>
> Bargaining Update 2012-12-01
>
> Negotiations end without agreement on monetary proposals; off to arbitration.
>
> SFUFA and the Administration held our last negotiation session on
> 2012-11-30 but we
> failed to come to an agreement on monetary items. Our bargaining
> bulletins have clearly shown the need for a fix to our salary scales.
> We were unable to come to an agreement with the Administration who
> indicated that they were constrained by PSEC (the Public Sector
> Employers Council) guidelines.
>
> Consequently, the negotiating team felt that we had no choice but to
> go to arbitration. As a matter of principle, Arbitrators are NOT tied
> by governmental guidelines that not legislated.
>
> The arbitration process in our Framework Agreement is final offer
> selection (FOS). In this mode, both parties put forward their proposal
> and the arbitrator must select one proposal or the other in its
> entirety and both parties must accept it. This differs substantially
> from interest arbitration (IA) where the Arbitrator can pick and choose
> between items on the two proposals or even come up with a different
> proposal from those submitted. In final offer selection (our method),
> it is generally recommended that the issues be few in number and
> tightly focused.
>
> Consequently, the Administration and SFUFA have agreed on a number of
> items below that will form part of both party's final offer to focus the
> difference in our respective proposals.
>
> (a) Agreement in principle of a new rank of Teaching Professor and
> Professor of Professional Practise.
>
> The rank of Teaching Professor will provide a further career path for
> our teaching appointments and generally promotion to this new rank
> will require demonstration of scholarship in pedagogy. UBC and UVic
> already have this new rank with similar promotion criteria. Our
> existing policy A30.03 Section B.3
> http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/academic/a30-03.html already has a
> similar career path for research faculty.
>
> The rank of Professor of Professional Practise will be modelled on our
> existing Clinical Professor rank (Policy A12.13,
> http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/academic/a12-13.html) where
> external agencies can fund faculty here at SFU. No SFU money will be
> involved. The existing cap of no more than 5% of the both ranks of
> our complement that is in the current policy will remain.
>
> SFUFA and the Admin will strike a committee to make the necessary
> changes to our policies in time for September 2013.
>
>
> (b) Agreement to examine the need for an across the board salary
> adjustments for Librarians under Section 9 of our salary policy
> (A20.01 http://www.sfu.ca/policies/gazette/academic/a20-01.html). A
> joint committee will be struck and report back with implementation by
> 1 Sept 2013.
>
> By using the features of the existing policy A20.01, some of the constraints
> imposed by PSEC are not applicable.
>
>
> (c) We were unable to come to agreement on benefit changes other than
> increasing our deductible from the current $25/family to $125/family
> in exchange for the provision of a drug card (no more filling out
> those forms to get reimbursement) and coverage of contraceptives. We
> hope these changes will take place 1 January 2013.
>
> Notice that the deductible is on a PER YEAR BASIS and not on an
> prescription basis. Under the new agreement, a member (and family)
> would have to incur $125 of expenses in a calendar year before being
> reimbursed for subsequent expenses.
>
> SFUFA will be carefully reviewing our remaining proposals for changes
> to our benefits
> to see if these are suitable under our final offer selection arbitration.
>
>
>
> So what happens next...
>
> Both parties will prepare their arbitration briefs and will exchange
> them between ourselves and send them to our Arbitrator (Colin Taylor)
> on 21 December. Arbitrator Taylor is also the arbitrator for UBC and
> UVic who also currently are at an impasse and also headed for arbitration.
>
> The earliest date for our arbitration hearing will likely be
> mid-February. At anytime up just before the final ruling, both parties
> can still negotiate and come to an agreement. SFUFA is ready at any
> time to resume negotiations if the Administration is permitted by PSEC
> to address our concerns.
>
> I would like to personally thank the members of our negotiation team (
> David Broun (Physics), Maureen Fizzell (Business) and Brian Green
> (SFUFA)) the members of the Bargaining Advisory Committee (too
> numerous to list) and the SFUFA Executive for their work and advice
> during the bargaining rounds. Not everyone is off the hook quite yet,
> as our team will be putting together our Arbitration Brief in the next
> three weeks!
>
> Believe it not, the whole process will start up again next September
> as the decision from the Arbitrator will run from 2012-07-01 to
> 2014-06-30. We are essentially in perpetual bargaining mode!
>
> If you have any questions about the negotiations, please contact me
> (cschwarz@stat.sfu.ca). I can also come to talk to groups (e.g. Departments)
> as needed.
>
>
> Carl Schwarz
> cschwarz@stat.sfu.ca