With no negative votes, Lincoln University's Faculty Senate approved a resolution Thursday asking President Kevin Rome and his administration to improve employees' health care coverage. Missouri lawmakers this year said the state's colleges and universities could join the Missouri Consolidated Health Care Plan, which provides health benefits to state employees.
Before this year's change in the law, Lincoln University and other higher education institutions were self-insured or offered some other health care package.
LU psychology professor Gary P. Homann proposed the resolution, which thanked Rome for "your successful efforts to attain approval for this from the state legislature and (asking) that you follow through by implementing the plan for the benefit of all of us in the Lincoln University community."
Homann noted his own experiences with health care coverage as an LU employee, starting his explanation in 1976 when he was just a boy and his father was a tool-and-die maker.
"He didn't go to college. In those days though, if you had a job, your company paid health insurance for the whole family," Homann noted. "When my brother and I got sick health insurance paid for it.
"(The family) didn't pay money out-of-pocket for that."
When Homann started teaching at Lincoln in 2008, he recalled, his monthly premium was $256.59, compared with $296.33 in 2016.
However, the deductible went from $500 a year for an individual and $1,000 for the family to $14,000 this year because some of his family's doctors now are out-of-network.
Homann noted he went from a maximum out-of-pocket cost in 2008 of $2,000 for an individual and $4,000 for the family to a $22,000 maximum today.
Homann said he has a daughter who was born with an unpreventable congenital heart problem that required two surgeries.
Although his family's doctors haven't changed, Homann explained, the insurance policies have, and some of his daughter's doctors no longer are in the covered network.
"I had to pay $14,000 before (the insurance) would pay for anything," he reported. "My take-home pay, after taking out health care costs, is less now than it was eight years ago.
"It's embarrassing to admit, but I've had to take out a home equity loan just to get by. And my wife is now working two jobs."
Homann noted his story isn't unusual because "others in this room have had to refinance their houses, take night and weekend jobs, and take other drastic measures to get by," he said.
If Lincoln would switch to Missouri Consolidated Health, he said, the employees and their families would become part of a plan that covers more than 95,000 state employees and their dependents, while LU's policy provides no benefits for spouses or dependents.
The MCHCP would cover about 90 percent of the premiums for spouses and dependents, Homann noted, and offer low deductibles and low maximum out-of-pocket costs.
The downside to LU, Human Resources Director Jim Marcantonio and Chief Financial Officer Sandy Koetting said in a message to the faculty, is the cost.
"The estimated cost associated with this is an estimated $2 million for active employees only," the statement said. "If we add retirees' benefits, it would be an additional $1 million.
"The estimated $3 million total is in addition to the current costs the university is providing for health care."
Homann urged the faculty to support the resolution and keep asking for the change even if the administration and board of curators say no.
His presentation followed the faculty's vote on the no confidence resolution involving Provost and Academic Affairs Vice President Said Sewell.
Homann talked about the health care issues while the Sewell votes were being counted.