Ahead of Sit-Down, Union Releases Healthcare Report

Days ahead of a planned sit-down with University administrators, the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers released a report on Wednesday afternoon that offers suggestions for lowering annual healthcare costs for all Harvard employees.

The report, entitled “Seven Good Ideas for Bending the Health Care Cost Curve,” proposes solutions to mitigate the cost burden on employees as healthcare costs soar nationwide, including at Harvard. It was released just weeks after the University made public an overhaul of its health benefits plans for nonunion employees and at a time when healthcare negotiations between the union and the University remain stalled.

The union’s nearly 4,800 members were not among those affected by the early September health plan changes, which included cuts to premiums and the introduction of deductibles.

If completely implemented, the union estimates the measures proposed in the report could save the University between five and six million dollars per year without meaningfully affecting coverage. Those savings, if adopted, would come as administrators have said healthcare costs are consuming a larger proportion of the University’s budget, currently estimated at 12 percent by Vice President for Human Resources Marilyn Hausammann.

HUCTW’s report presents what the union thinks are the best options for University-wide healthcare policy reform. Based on a year of research by union leaders, the report lays out short-, medium-, and long-term cost-cutting options from promoting the use of mail-order prescriptions to increased investment in “condition management” to transformations in the conventional model for primary care.

HUCTW director Bill Jaeger said he hopes the University will be receptive to the ideas.

“We’re interested in the idea that there are different kinds of strategies available for controlling the cost of healthcare,” Jaeger said. “We’re really trying to provoke the conversation and ask the whole community to engage with the question of what are really progressive, innovative ways to try to be part of the solution.”

Harvard and representatives of the union—the University’s largest labor organization—will begin meeting on Friday to discuss the recently announced health benefits plans as well as other issues concerning the cost of healthcare, according to Harvard Labor Relations Director Bill Murphy.

“It is our expectation that all participants in this discussion will come to the table with their best ideas,” Murphy wrote in an email. “Any analysis of specific ideas at this point, however, would be premature."

Jaeger said that union members have been enthusiastic about the cost-cutting ideas outlined in the report, which he hopes could help cut costs for both union and nonunion employees.

“We’re ever-optimistic,” said HUCTW organizer Donene M. Williams, who helped write the report. “The more people that are interested in [healthcare policy], the more likely it is that something new or creative might happen.”

Jaeger added, “the conversation is just getting started in the union but already on our phone lines and in our email there are a lot of stories and observations from our members about how these ideas might better their lives.”

Healthcare negotiations between the University and HUCTW have been stalled since September 2013 when the parties failed to reach an agreement on the health benefits. A larger earlier 2013 contract had also failed to reach a resolution on the topic. As a result, union members’ benefits plans have not changed in the last four years, according to Williams.

The Friday meeting—which will include Jaeger, Williams, Murphy, Hausammann, Executive Vice President Katherine N. Lapp, Director of Benefits and Human Resources Systems Rita Moore, and several faculty members—marks the first time in over a year that union leaders have met with central administrators, Williams said.

“We’ve had a number of proposals back and forth with each other that have been stalled, and we have ongoing healthcare negotiations that aren’t going anywhere,” Williams said. “I would not consider [the meeting] a re-opening of negotiations, but do think it’s better to meet and talk than not talking.”

—Staff writer Mariel A. Klein can be reached at mariel.klein@thecrimson.com. Follow her on Twitter @mariel_klein.