PROPOSED
DENTAL PLAN
Later this semester, Acadia University employees belonging to AUFA, AUPAT, and SEIU will vote on a dental plan proposed by The University Standing Committee on Group Insurance. AUFA has two voting representatives on the committee, Ian Hutchinson and me. Management chairs the committee and has a vote. A Board member and representatives from AUPAT and SEIU also sit on the Committee and have voting privileges. The AUFA representatives were instructed by the general membership (unanimously) to bring a dental plan forward and have worked for several months with the other committee members to develop one. Given the clear instruction from AUFA’s membership and the specific wording of Article 26, the committee made the dental plan proposal a priority.
The committee’s deliberations were bounded by Article 26. The role of the committee, AUFA’s representation on the committee, 50/50 premium sharing, the tradeoff between the HSA and the proposed dental plan, voting eligibility, and voting procedures are specified in Article 26 of the Eleventh Collective Agreement. The wording of the Tenth is similar, except for the dental plan.
The proposed plan is a compromise. AUFA’s representatives argued for a plan with better benefits. We were unsuccessful since the premiums would have been higher and those increased premiums would have purchased benefits of less value to some employees because of the large co-pays. All employee representatives would have preferred an optional plan allowing non participants to keep their HSA’s. Unfortunately, the premiums for an optional plan would have been prohibitively high. The proposed dental plan is approximately cost neutral to the Board because it will replace the Health Spending Account.
The issues and tradeoffs are too complex to fully discuss here. For example there are both tax considerations and escalation considerations. The HSA, the employer’s portion of the dental premium, and dental benefit payments are all non taxable. The HSA will be $650 a year for the final two years of the current agreement, more than the employer’s portion of the initial premium, but new dental plan costs tend to increase by 15% to 20% for the first several years. Other factors such as family size, age of children, and dental history vary by individual. I strongly recommend you attend one of the information sessions to be offered by Human Resources before you vote.
If adopted, the proposed dental plan will not be the best university dental plan in Canada, but it will be one of the best. The HSA is also an excellent benefit, to my knowledge so far unmatched by other Canadian Universities. It would be nice to have both, but the collective agreement requires us to consider “a Dental plan to replace the Health Spending Account.” We can’t have both, but we can choose between two very good alternatives. Our negotiating team, with the support of hundreds of us who walked the line a year ago, has given us two first class choices. You should weigh these carefully and vote for the option most attractive for you.
Rick Sparkman