We are a bit slow in catching up with the Regents Health Services Committee meeting of April 6. However, it turned out to be revealing. The meeting went on for over 4 hours but one hour was noteworthy.
As usual, the meeting started with public comments. The comments this time were limited; perhaps potential speakers are waiting for the May meeting of the full board. In any case, comments referred to a bill in the legislature that would limit UC partnerships with Dignity. (Dignity, because of its Catholic connection, doesn't provide certain services such as abortion.) Speakers noted that the partnership at Riverside was essential for its medical program and that other partners were not available.*
The public comment period was followed by the usual presentations of UC president Drake and Carrie Byington who heads UC health on such matters as the coronavirus situation. One issue it would be nice to have a simple answer to is what the net effect of the coronavirus situation has had on UC Health. It was said that there was a revenue loss of $1.6 billion but that 53% was made up by various government grants. However, there was a confusing switching between 12-month periods and 6-month periods. Mental health services for students were also discussed.
In past meetings, there was little attention in the Health Services Committee to the various health insurance plans that UC provides to its own employees. Presumably, this lack of focus on those plans reflected the fact that in the past administration of the programs was in the hands of HR folks at UCOP.
Almost an hour was devoted to "self funded" UC health plans, i.e., essentially everything except Kaiser.** It is apparent from that meeting that UC Health is calling the shots now, although it was said to be in partnership with the HR people. Carrie Byington was in charge of that session of the meeting. However, a PowerPoint presentation was made by Laura Tauber who is in charge of UC self funded health plans. There was a lot of talk about why we let UC's health dollars go to Kaiser, about how keeping those dollars at home (in UC Health facilities) would help the university (including non-medical departments that get indirect cross-subsidization). On the other hand, it was said that the UC Health centers give a "discount" to UC plans - which presumably would lower the indirect and direct benefits. No specifics were provided.
Regent Park in particular grumbled about the dollars going to Kaiser. UC Health reps talked about Kaiser not doing its fair share in California of handling low-reimbursement Medi-Cal patients. Other California providers have to take up the slack and are then forced to charge more for commercially-insured patients. There was some taking account of campuses without UC Health centers and the fact that Kaiser may be a good option for them, but the focus was on capturing the Kaiser dollars, perhaps by rejiggering rates charged to employees to make the self funded plans that offer UC Health more attractive.
At one point, Robert Horwitz - Academic Senate vice chair - was called on and fretted that UC Health was taking over the university; he was quickly squelched. It was said that UC Health is about half of UC revenue and growing and that to be competitive, UC Health had to be big and growing. The Regents along the way have approved the growth and that's the way it is. Of course, the Academic Senate vice chair will soon become the chair. How Horwitz will get along in that role now that he has been seen as a potential enemy of UC Health remains to be seen.
There was no specific discussion of retiree health plans or Medicare Advantage.
The session on UC's health insurance plans was followed by discussion of strategic planning at UC Health. In that segment, there was a brief return to the theme of capturing UC health insurance dollars by UC Health.
You can see the meeting at the link below. The segment about self funded plans and capturing the Kaiser dollars for UC Health starts at around hour 2, minute 50:
It's worth a watch.
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*Yours truly was unable to find the bill on the web.
**Many large employers including UC self-fund their health plans. What this means is that the employer acts as an insurance company, but hires an actual insurance company to process claims. From the employee's perspective, an entity such as Blue Cross is providing the insurance. However, the collection of premiums and the reimbursement of providers, etc., is from a pool of funds maintained by the employer who takes on the risk.
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