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NEA News

Health Care Coverage for Maine Retirees under Assault

The University of Maine System told nearly 2,900 retirees that it no longer would provide group coverage — instead, retirees would have to buy their own plans through a private exchange. Their union fought back. AND WON.
Maine protest
Published: November 16, 2020

Key Takeaways

  1. The university promised health care benefits for its retirees. Then it broke that promise to save money.
  2. Maine retirees and their union fought back — protesting, writing letters (and grievances!) and more.
  3. What's at stake? Some retirees have life-threatening, terminal illnesses. They need consistent, affordable care.

Editor's note: Victory!! On Nov. 19, after a group of University of Maine retirees, who all were union members, filed a lawsuit against the university system, and after retirees provided compelling personal testimony at a Board of Trustees meeting, the UMS system announced it would "pause" its plans around retiree health care. A week later, the university announced it had reversed itself. Retirees could keep the university-provided health care coverage. "This is a tremendous victory for retirees and is the direct result of our collective efforts. A debt of gratitude is owed to the many retirees who shared their stories, picketed, emailed, called, and wrote letters – together we were successful in protecting your group health care plan going forward. Our collective action made a difference!" wrote the presidents of the three NEA-affiliated, UMS unions Neil Greenberg, Jim McClymer, and Sheryl Spenser on Nov. 25.

Fifteen years ago, not long after Susan McLaughlin retired from the University of Maine after more than 30 years of service to students, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and told she might have another 5, maybe 8 more years to live.

Thanks to “a little pink pill that saved my life,” she says, and the excellent health care that she has accessed through the University of Maine System (UMS)’s group health coverage for its retirees, McLaughlin is still here. But now she has another fight on her hands.

Last month, university administrators revealed to nearly 2,900 retirees, who are eligible for Medicare, that it would no longer provide group coverage to these retirees and their spouses. This coverage, which campus unions bargained, has provided UMS retirees with essential coverage for the gaps in Medicare coverage around hospital and medical costs, as well as prescription drugs, for as long as any of them can remember.

"Some are going to be horribly worse off."

In August, in a private meeting without any notice to employees or retirees or involvement of the unions on campus, UMS had signed a contract with Aon, a massive, multi-national, for-profit company providing retirement, health, and other services, to offer a private health insurance exchange instead of the group health coverage.

The university will provide $2,100 to each retiree and $800 for spouses to purchase a plan, which must be spent through Aon. If retirees and their spouses are not enrolled by January 1, they forfeit the 2021 reimbursement and any future money. According to UMS material sent to retirees, the current plan ends on December 31, 2020. Retirees could experience huge gaps in coverage if they are not enrolled in an Aon plan by January 1, 2021.

“They kept this completely secret,” says Jim McClymer, a Maine physics professor and president of the statewide Associated Faculty of the Universities of Maine (AFUM), an affiliate of the Maine Education Association. “They waived policy to hide the RFP, so nobody could find it. Like they were ashamed of it! Why didn’t they come out and say, ‘we have this great idea! You’re going to love it!’ There’s a reason they hid it in the dark,” he says.

“Some people are going to be okay. Some might even be better off. But at least half of retirees are going to be worse off — some of them horribly worse off,” McClymer estimates.

McLaughlin needs blood work every 8 weeks, to see her oncologist every 10-12 weeks, and a CT-scan every 6 months. In 2019, she required numerous hospital stays, blood transfusions, and home health care. After looking closely at the various Aon-provided plans available to her, she found that the cost of her out-of-pocket expenses next year will be $2,858, at least — for one month. That’s nearly $35,000 a year. The chemo drug that now costs her $660 a year — and keeps her alive — will cost $17,226.

Fighting back

Since the university announced it was taking away the retirees’ group coverage — a benefit that was bargained by the unions — the three NEA-affiliated unions on campus have filed grievances against UM for contract violations. Those grievances, which UMS has rejected, likely will go to arbitration, a process that can take a year or more.

Last month, dozens of gray-haired retirees picketed outside the offices of university trustees, chanting and carrying signs that said "Elder Abuse." In a statement that a colleague read aloud, retired UMS law professor Nancy Wanderer shared how her bone cancer would never be cured, and how it makes her reliant on medications. The drug she takes costs $14,000 a month. With UMS coverage, it's a co-pay of $51. In the future, under an Aon plan, she'll have to pay $3,500 the first month, and then $800 a month until she reaches a $6,550 deductible for catastrophic coverage for prescription drugs, the Bangor Daily News reported.

Many retirees have written letters to UMS trustees, spoken at their public meetings, and also contacted state legislators. They want to know how the university can break their promise to them. They want to know why a public institution, like the university, would take taxpayer dollars and plow them into a for-profit insurance exchange.

The answer is clear: The university has said it would save about $2.5 million a year.

But many state lawmakers believe the cost—and the estimate—of those savings is too high. In September, the state Senate president, majority leader, and assistant majority leader, as well as the House of Representatives majority leader and assistant majority leader, wrote together to UM Chancellor Daniel Malloy (a former governor of Connecticut), in dismay.

Yes, budgets are tight, the lawmakers acknowledged. “But that is no excuse for pulling the rug out from nearly 2,900 Mainers who…put in the work and earned their benefits,” they wrote. “Forcing retirees, who were promised a lifetime of coverage to change the health care benefits that they bargained for and to switch providers with little notice in the middle of a pandemic simply isn’t right.”

Last week, state Sen. Rebecca Millett (D-Cape Elizabeth) filed a bill that would protect UMS retirees’ benefits.[UMS retirees] dedicated their entire careers to investing in the system, growing the UMS brand and providing a world-class college education to thousands of college graduates. They bargained faithfully for health care benefits, were promised these specific benefits and most importantly, they earned their health care benefits,” said Millett.

“For the university…to go back on their word in the middle of a health crisis, it’s just unconscionable. To do so in secrecy, without consulting the retirees, seems deliberate. We owe retirees of UMS better.”

A health hazard

Many UMS retirees are former faculty members, but retirees also include former professional staff and clerical workers who earned comparatively low salaries during their careers. All understood that retiree healthcare was part of their compensation — and, as union members, they agreed to accept lower salaries as active employees to secure those retirement benefits.

Some retired very recently. They might not have, they say, if they had known — as UMS knew — that their retiree healthcare was endangered. Others retired decades ago. Now, at the age of 85 or 90, they’re suddenly navigating the very complicated online world of  Medicare Advantage, Medigap and Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, talking to each about the benefits of, for example,  Plan F vs. Plan G, and trying to figure out what they can afford to survive.

“Even if I spent $10,000 a year on my health care premium, I couldn’t get what they’ve taken away,” says Susan Feiner, a retired economics professor at the University of Southern Maine. The advantage plans might cost less, but put more risk on the insured, she has learned. The Medigap plans provide more protection, but also cost at least $200 a month, she estimates.

“The retirees who were clerical staff, who were paid [little], they don’t have that money,” says Feiner. “It’s just ruthless! And not only ruthless, but you can see what [the university is] doing. They’re offering us such pathetic money that the people at the bottom will just say, ‘f*&^ it!’ and go on MaineCare (the state’s Medicaid program for people in poverty.)”

Psychology professor Richard Pare retired seven years ago after 36 years of teaching. He and his wife both have cancer. His is in remission, but his wife had surgery about a month ago and now is in chemotherapy. In January, she begins radiation. “The last thing we want to have to deal with is choosing a new health plan,” he says.

Recently, Pare talked with an Aon representative about his options and learned that a new plan would require his wife to leave two of her doctors and find new providers. In addition, she will have to switch — against her doctor’s recommendation — to the generic version of a medication she needs.

 “All of this boils down to the fact that we will get less coverage and yet pay more out of our pockets,” he says.

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