UCSC has eliminated a discounted health care plan for its employees, and staff are now being forced to choose between a cheaper plan that excludes physicians under the Sutter Health Network and an inclusive plan that is 150 percent more costly. Some 60 percent of the employees are affected. They are now faced with a dilemma: switch plans or switch physicians.
The new development has raised concerns not only among lower paid staff but among the school’s administration. Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Alison Galloway has called the change “disappointing” and said she expressed these concerns to the heads of the UC system. Also opposed to the plan is Santa Cruz Mayor Mike Rotkin, who teaches at UCSC. “This is not a done deal,” he says. “We think UC should go back to the table.”
On the other hand, UC Vice President of Human Resources Dwayne Duckett is defending the decision, and blames the price hike on the passage of health care reform. “We did the best we absolutely could in terms of managing cost,” he says, adding that just over half the employees of the UC system will see an increase of just $10 per month.
Rotkin doesn’t accept that. Other campuses, he says, are located in larger cities, like Los Angeles, where employees have far more choices over where to seek medical care. He has called on the unions to use their leverage to force the UC system to reverse its decision. Read more at Santa Cruz Sentinel.
