Open Letter to President Coleman

Dear Dr. Coleman,

Thank you for hosting the fireside chat yesterday afternoon in East Quad. I really appreciated the opportunity to hear you respond to the concerns of students in an informal setting.

I was also pleased that we spent a lot of time talking about health care. It’s an issue that’s been on my mind a lot over the last few months as I see what’s happening to benefits at the University. I know of your efforts with the Institute of Medicine to investigate the health insurance crisis facing this country. I hope that I can count on you as an ally to fight the same fight here at home.

Anyone familiar with the University’s situation can’t help but recognize the fiscal challenges we face. Faced with such enormous challenges, the University has an ideal opportunity to illustrate it’s priorities. My concerns arise from the ways in which the University has chosen to address rising health insurance costs for the workers of the University.

During our discussion yesterday, you told us that the health insurance changes were the recommendation of the CHIPD committee, made after that group of experts considered the health care situation that the University finds itself in. I don’t believe that this characterization is entirely accurate. First of all, the 5% co-premium for 2004 was apparently imposed as an executive action by the Provost. This change was announced in April, before CHIPD was even convened. Furthermore, the charge of the committee was explicitly not to look at potential solutions to the health care crisis at UM. Instead, they had the narrow charge to determine how cost shifting should be structured; Provost Courant explicitly stated that the goal of the committee should be to design a 15% cost-shift.

As far as I can tell, there has been no coordinated effort by the University to look at the question of health insurance in any sort of comprehensive or creative way. Apparently, the University has considered the health care crisis as only a fiscial crisis. In this case, I believe they have missed the forest for the trees — health care, and the health of University employees, is first and foremost a moral issue. The Unversity has historically lived up to its responsibility to provide for its employees health. Today, it retains a great responsibility to contribute part of its considerable resources to addressing health insurance in a more forward-thinking way than simply increasing the employees’ share of costs.

Someone at the meeting mentioned the importance of political will to change the terms of the health care crisis on a national level. The University of Michigan is a state institution, integrally connected to a community of well over 100,000 people. It has renown resources and creativity, and an extraordinary historical commitment to progressive causes. If the University doesn’t have the political will to try to change the nature of the debate, who will?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,