FixFlex.Org

Greetings folks,

I just got another firm number from the Benefits Office this morning: There are 845 employees enrolled in Dental III. This is more than double the number of single parents with children (415) that FRIC is focusing so much effort on (deservedly so). But the Dental III group is being hit due to “low enrollment”.

Thus, here’s a summary right now of all the groups who will take a “hit” under the new system:

(1) dual-spouse employees (1100)
(2) employees who are insured through a non-UI spouse and use their UI flex credits for other purposes (e.g., dependent care spending) (1500)
(3) employees currently enrolled in Dental III (845)
(4) employees counting on group life insurance in excess of the new cap
on the max insurance (e.g., terminally ill employees) (number unknown)
(5) roughly 45% of SEIU members (1200; overlap with (1) and (2) in UI calculations is unknown)

Thus, if you only use my firm numbers (1,2,3 above) and if you assume no overlap (which is unlikely, but I have no data on this), this proposal will have a MAJOR impact on 31% of employees at UI. WE NEED TO MAKE THIS NUMBER PUBLIC BECAUSE IT COMPLETELY SHIFTS THE LANDSCAPE OF HOW THIS IS “SOLD” TO THE COMMUNITY. I have alerted the Press Citizen and Gazette to this fact.

FixFlex is trying to get firm numbers from UI for 4 and 5 above. My efforts to do this yesterday (combined with the efforts of other FixFlex members) were unsuccessful. I’ll keep trying.

Best,
John