On February 3rd the Benefits Committee convened at the
offices of Cheiron in Chicago
to review the TeamCare proposal. This is the proposal that was reported on in
the January 17th Dispatch
and was provided to the Benefits Committee that weekend. The Benefits Committee
spent the previous two weeks reviewing the proposal and the corresponding plan
documents. The Benefits Committee spent all day on February 3rd dissecting the proposal with the help
of benefits actuary Gaelle Gravot to prepare questions for the meeting with TeamCare
on the February 4th.
On February 4th both the Benefits and the Negotiating
Committees met at the offices of TeamCare in Rosemont, IL.
TeamCare made a presentation to the group explaining what they could offer the
group as well as the size and health of the fund. Currently TeamCare provides
insurance to close to 500,000 people and have 21.5 months of funding in
reserve. What that means is that if every company in the fund stopped
contributing, TeamCare would be able to provide benefits for 21.5 months. The
presentation continued until lunch. After lunch, both committees asked
questions of TeamCare representatives until the end of the day. It was
determined that there were still questions and so both committees returned on
February 5th to get
more answers.
TeamCare had responses for the outstanding
questions prepared for the group that morning. After receiving those answers,
the Benefits Committee met with the assistance of Gaelle Gravot and attorney Ed
Gleason. The committee discussed the proposal until right before lunch. Both
committees then met and discussed the findings of the benefits committee. At
the end of the discussion; given that the overall benefits provided were better
and the cost was lower, the Benefits Committee unanimously recommended to the
rank and file negotiating that they adopt the TeamCare proposal. The rank and
file committee discussed the findings and recommendations of the benefits
committee. When it appeared that all questions were asked, one of the rank and
file committee members called for the question. The vote was taken and there
was no opposition to the recommendation of the Benefit Committee. Before the
proposal was adopted, a couple of committee members asked that all
representatives except for the thirteen voting members recuse themselves. The
thirteen members then met and again the recommendation of the Benefits
Committee was overwhelmingly adopted without opposition.
Accordingly, the TeamCare proposal was added
to the comprehensive proposal that will be given to mediator McGuckin on Monday the 9th.
For those members in an HMO in California,
Hawaii, Denver and Chicago; TeamCare will be replicating those plans so there
will be nothing new except for whatever the final cost share ends up to be. For
everyone else the proposal is for a non-grandfathered plan that is similar to
the MM100 plan offered by TeamCare with coverage provided mostly by Blue Cross
and Blue Shield. Non-grandfathered plans are subject to regulations of the ACA
so that is why there are differences from the MM100 plan. It was deemed by the
committee that it would be better to move forward with the non-grandfathered
plan as it provides more benefits to the membership. To see the plan documents
for MM100 navigate tohttps://myteamcare.org/forms_
The Benefits Committee was then excused and
thanked for their diligence. At that point there were several clarifying
questions to Ed Gleason about the committee’s pension proposal. In the end
there were no changes recommended to the pension proposal made in November of
2013.
The committee then worked towards putting the
finishing touches on the comprehensive proposal. As stated above, this work is
complete as of this writing and the proposal will be forwarded to mediator
McGuckin on the 9th. It is believed that once the mediator reviews
this proposal that the parties will possibly reconvene later this month.
