Dear Colleagues,

The University of California is considering restructuring the provision of medical plans for its employees across the ten campuses of the system. These changes would have a dramatic impact upon the health care options currently available to all UC employees, including faculty.  In brief, the plan is to eliminate Health Net and possibly Kaiser, replacing them with a new UC Care HMO program, which would be mandatory for all employees. The aim is to generate savings for the university by forcing UC employees into a monopoly healthcare system that will be both less convenient and more expensive to use, as well as cause severe inequities of provision between campuses. Those at UC campuses without medical centers–including us at UCR, for instance–would be forced either to drive long distances to a UC campus with a medical center (such as UCLA or UC Irvine in our case), or rely on a network of local providers contracted to UC Care, which may prove to be both inadequate and far more expensive.

The Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA), of which RFA is a chapter, plans to  send a letter to President Janet Napolitano, asking her to undertake serious study of the manifold consequences of this plan and to make transparent the financial projections driving it.  We strongly encourage you to add your name to this letter, so that President Napolitano sees how important these health care options are to UC’s faculty.  To sign the letter, please visit:

http://cucfa.org/healthcare-options-petition/