Sent: Monday, August 15, 2016 20:26
To: HFS.SendAll
Subject: Health Benefits Update from John Terranova

Dear Colleagues,

Many of you have questions about the State’s health insurance proposal. That is understandable, as health insurance is a very important topic that affects us all. Indeed, like you, I participate in the very same health insurance program, so frequently have many of the same questions. Would I be able to continue paying the same premium I am paying now? How much would it cost to obtain basic services like immunizations and vaccines? What would be the most that I have to pay out of pocket in any given year?

To answer these and other questions, I sat down with a knowledgeable colleague, Teresa Flesch, who serves as the Assistant Deputy Director in the CMS Bureau of Benefits. Teresa is a terrific source of knowledge about health insurance benefits, and what resulted from my conversation with her is a very informative and short video that you can access by clicking here. Teresa and I believe you will find the video useful and recommend that you find five minutes to watch it.

As always, if you have more questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me and my colleagues in CMS Labor Relations, or submit questions through the FAQ website.

Yours,
JT
John Terranova
Deputy Director
Office of Labor Relations
Department of Central Management Services

* I asked AFSCME for a response…

Rich,

This latest video from the Rauner Administration is riddled with misstatements, omissions and outright falsehoods—not unlike all of its communications related to the state contract.

To be clear, despite our repeated information requests across the bargaining table dating back nearly a year, the Rauner Administration has refused to provide AFSCME with its proposed health plan summaries containing the level of detail discussed in this video. As a result we cannot independently analyze the validity of some of these claims.

That said, under the terms the Rauner Administration had on the table when it walked away from negotiations back in January, for an employee to keep their current plan—same doctors, same coverage and same co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs—premiums would double in the first year the plan is implemented, and could continue to go up another 10% per year after that.

Those premium increases would cost the average worker some $10,000 over the term of the contract. Since Rauner is also demanding a four-year wage freeze, that’s effectively a $10,000 pay cut for the typical employee.

The Administration claims it would offer a choice of other plans, including ones at current premium levels. But employees would likely pay sharply higher co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs under those plans. In essence, here the Rauner Administration is telling workers who can’t afford higher premiums to simply hope they don’t get sick.

What the Rauner Administration never admits is that its overall demand is for workers to pay 67% more of the cost of health care in the aggregate. Their vaunted “choice” for employees is whether to bear those vastly higher costs in the form of premiums or co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs.

The AFSCME bargaining committee has made clear its willingness to moderate increases in employee health costs. But there is no justification for the radical cost-shifting demanded by the Rauner Administration. The overall value of the state health plan is now about average among the states. The Rauner Administration’s demands would drop Illinois to the bottom five worst state health plans in the nation.

Just two examples of this video’s misleading claims and omissions:

* The section from 1:23-1:40 discusses certain plan options that may offer the same coverage at the same premiums as today—but doesn’t disclose until a later section the vastly higher co-pays, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs that would be imposed under these options.

* The section beginning at 1:55 discusses preventive care, noting that “many of the most common services would be free”. The implication is that the Rauner Administration is somehow due credit for this, or that it’s offering free services out of kindness. The reality is that every health plan is required by federal law—President Obama’s Affordable Care Act—to provide these preventive services free of charge.

It’s also worth noting that it’s not only the 38,000 AFSCME-represented state employees who would be affected by the Rauner Administration’s demands. These demands would be imposed on all the more than 360,000 people covered by the state group health plan, including all active and retired state employees, active and retired university employees, and their spouses and dependent children.

Misleading communications—including videos like this one—are intended to confuse employees. It’s a disservice to workers and to the collective bargaining process for the administration to cherry-pick information in this manner instead of providing the complete proposed plan summaries to our union. This type of misinformation is even more troubling when public taxpayer resources are being expended to produce and disseminate it, and when public employees are being subjected to it on the job.

Many state employees feel these videos and emails are inappropriate and unethical. State workers have tough and important jobs to do, serving their communities. When they’re at work they want to focus on their service, not be distracted and harassed on the job by the Rauner Administration’s anti-union misinformation campaign.

I hope this information is helpful.

Martha Merrill
Director of Employee Benefits
AFSCME Council 31