Employee insurance premiums
may rise
By Laura Pelner
Campus
Editor
The premiums University employees have to pay for
health insurance coverage may increase in a range from $150 to $300
next year.
Those employees who make below $38,000 a year will
pay $150 more and those who make more than $38,000 will pay $300 more
if Purdue's board of trustees approves the changes at its next meeting.
James Almond, assistant treasurer and vice president
of business services, presented these figures to Purdue employees at
the University Senate meeting Monday afternoon.
Almond said it's a "very difficult" time to manage
a health plan and he cited numerous reasons why medical costs are rising.
These include Purdue's employees working beyond age 65, when individual
medical costs generally increase per person; the University handling
an increased number of large-claim cases, for example the University
paid $11.6 million for 176 of such cases in 2000; health care inflation;
low Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates; and prescription drug
costs.
The University has several strategies in place
to lessen health care costs. Pricing agreements with hospitals, physician
networks, on-site medical case management, outpatient surgical pre-certification
and prescription drug networks are examples of a few.
However, even with these measures, Almond said
health care coverage will change. "It's going to be very difficult to
get savings without affecting medical choices in the future," he said.
To an extent, medical choices will change next
year because the University has modified its three-tier prescription
drug system. The proposed changes will affect how much of a co-payment
people have to pay per prescription.
Almond said those covered under the Purdue Health
Plan and Purdue Managed Care would be reimbursed 80 percent for a generic
drug, 70 percent for a preferred or formulary drug, and only 50 percent
for a brand-name drug if medicine in the other options was available.
Put simpler, if a generic or formulary drug is available for a prescription
and a patient elects to get the brand-name drug anyway, he or she will
have to pay 50 percent of the prescription's cost.
These changes won't become final until after the
board of trustees approves them. After the board's Sept. 21 meeting,
all University employees will receive information about the changes.
Also at the Senate meeting, President Martin Jischke
gave remarks about the murders that took place in August, Discover Purdue
week and enrollment.
The Senate also passed documents to elect student
nominees to various committees.
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