Memorandum from Rory O’Neill, President-Elect of the UAF Staff Council, to Mike Humphrey, SWOHR Director of Benefits and Jim Johnsen, Vice President for Faculty and Staff.

05 March 2003

Mike, Jim:

It would be instructive to revisit the goals levied upon the Plan Design

committee so that the net overall result of this effort is kept in full view.

I offer the following overarching goal for your consideration: "Craft an

affordable 2002-2009 health plan for employees in pay grades 74-78 which,

according to a McDowell Report breakdown, constitute 60%(?) of the UA employee

pool by headcount."

Yesterday's Health Plan Finance Committee meeting left me with the sensation

that we witnessed a solution without fully understanding the goals or

objectives it sought to address. Perhaps that's how the three committee

boundaries are designed, suggesting that we ignore where we're being led and

focus upon how a particular approach could be adequately financed.

Based upon discussions prior to the start of the meeting there's clearly a

sense that the underlying theme has been to avoid tackling challenges head on,

such as regional trends in medical inflation. The secondary sensation that

gripped everyone was that if the UA2000 plan will price itself out of reach,

then why would it persist as one of the (Flex Plan) options? Have we

surrendered, in essence asking employees to annually downgrade their realized

standards of living in order to possess adequate health coverage?

Let's not be shy about articulating the values of the University of Alaska as

an employer. Hopefully the Plan Design Committee will begin forwarding to the

Finance Committee structural adjustments to the health plan that satisfy

explicitly stated challenges. There's a lot of intellectual capacity

committed to bi-weekly meetings across all three committees, so lets be sure

to challenge ourselves so that we can be proud of the net output come June 30,

2003.

Respectfully,

Rory.