7/19/17: Regents Action May Significantly Increase Retiree Health Premiums

Members of the UCLA Emerti Association and the UCLA Retirees’ Association were notified today that a budget agenda item that could affect all present and past UCLA employees was being considered.

The UCLA chapter of the AAUP urges all members to read the information below and to make your opinions known to the Regents.

 

The UCLA Emeriti Association and the UCLA Retirees’ Association recently became aware that the Regents are considering an action that could significantly increase health care premiums for UC emeriti and retirees. Retiree, emeriti, faculty and staff organizations have quickly mobilized to respond to this issue but further action is required and your help is needed.

UCLA Professor Emeritus Dan Mitchell, past president of the UCLA Emeriti Association, noticed an item on the July 12, 2017 agenda for the Regents Finance and Capital Strategies Committee to “Rescind the 70 percent Floor for the University’s Aggregate Annual Contribution to the Retiree Health Benefit Program.”

Through swift action, retiree, faculty and staff representatives from across the UC campuses objected vociferously to this agenda item, which was added without any discussion or prior notice. The Council of UC Retiree Associations (CUCRA), The Council of UC Emeriti Associations (CUCEA), the UC system-wide Academic Council and the retiree and emeriti associations on several UC campuses, including our own, joined in the effort to protest this action item.

This prompt outcry resulted in the removal of the item from the July meeting agenda and a rescheduling to September to allow more time for consultation and analysis.

As background, in 2011, UC paid, on average, 86 percent of retiree health care premiums. At that time, in an effort to contain costs for retiree health care and after much discussion and consultation with staff, faculty and retiree representatives, the Regents approved a plan that gradually reduced that amount over several years to a floor of 70 percent. That current cost-sharing formula, whereby the University pays an average of 70 percent of retiree healthcare premiums and retirees pay 30 percent, is in place today.

This action is an erosion of the University’s long history and tradition of shared governance whereby major policy decisions such as this are made only after representatives of the affected parties have been involved in discussions and given the opportunity to analyze the effect of such a change.

You are encouraged to action by emailing or writing to the Regents about this matter.

We will continue to work with our colleagues at all of the UC campuses to respond to this issue, but many voices may be more effective than just a few. A “letter writing” campaign may make the Regents realize the importance of this matter to all of us.

If you contact the Regents, consider the following talking points (use your own words):

• Employees in the University of California system have regularly worked for “under-market” compensation, based on their belief that their pension and health benefits would be there for them in retirement.

• The 70 percent floor for UC’s contribution to emeriti health benefits was adopted to provide some stability to emeriti and retiree health care costs.
Except for the annual COLA, retirees and emeriti have no way to increase their income to fund the increased cost of healthcare.

• Although emeriti and retiree health benefits have never been guaranteed and are not “vested” in the same way pension benefits are, UC needs to maintain the 70% floor of healthcare benefits because of their importance for recruiting and retaining faculty and staff.

• Removing the 70 percent floor could be the first step toward eliminating this key retirement benefit that retirees and emeriti counted on during their long careers at the University.

Whom to contact:

By email (use the subject line “Retiree health care–rescinding of 70% floor): regentsoffice@ucop.edu

By mail: Office of the Secretary and Chief of Staff to the Regents

1111 Franklin St., 12th floorOakland, CA 94607

Oakland, CA 94607