An Update on Statewide Healthcare Bargaining: It’s Not About Numbers. It’s About You.

November 10, 2021

On Friday, your statewide healthcare bargaining team finished four days of testimony and closing arguments before a panel of arbitrators. As they weigh their binding decision – due by December 5 – your team reminded them that in the end, this process is about people. You. Your families. Your colleagues and their families.

“During the last four days of hearing, numbers were discussed, spreadsheets disputed, premium share contribution levels bandied about, and out-of-pocket exposure numbers explored.  Diving into this level of minutiae over the course of four days can be exhausting, confusing, and downright tedious,” Rebecca McBroom, Vermont-NEA’s legal counsel, said in her closing arguments after four grueling days of testimony.  “However, this cannot and must not obscure us from the intense human impact that this overwhelmingly critical round of statewide health care negotiations will have on roughly 35,000 Vermonters.  The union requests that first and foremost, you view the evidence through the lens of how your decision will affect our state as a whole: our educators, our students, our families and our communities.”

From the start of this process nearly a year ago, your team has been dogged in its determination to make these negotiations about the people who rely on good healthcare. Your team has remained committed to fighting for healthcare that is accessible, more affordable, and comprehensive. Sadly – but not unpredictably – the Vermont School Boards Association team wants to punish you, especially if you are lower-paid, especially if you are a woman, especially if you actually use healthcare. Indeed, VSBA’s lawyer, Joe McNeil, argued that their desire to hike your out-of-pocket costs is merely removing the “shiny chrome” from the “Rolls Royce” healthcare plans your already have.

“It is cold and cruel to believe that is acceptable that people who need more medical care simply must pay more for it because ‘that is just the way it is’” as a member of VSBA’s team put, McBroom argued. “Humans are at their most vulnerable when they or their family members are sick.  It is the last time in their lives that people should be worried about the cost of their health care.” 

In the end, only two significant areas of disagreement are up to the arbitrators to decide: out-of-pocket expenses and grievance procedures. The panel of arbitrators will choose either the VSBA’s cynical plan that seeks to stick higher healthcare costs onto the backs of thousands of pandemic heroes, or your team’s more balanced approach – an approach that is in complete agreement with the findings last month of a neutral factfinder. (You can read that report right here.) The arbitrators’ decision is binding, and will govern the statewide healthcare plan that begins on Jan. 1, 2023. The plan will be in effect for three years.

Your team agreed with the fact-finder’s report, which recommends out-of-pocket costs for licensed educators to be $600 a year for single plans and $1,000 a year for all other tiers of coverage. The factfinder recommended no increase in out-of-pocket costs for non-licensed employees, which are currently $300 for single coverage and $600 for all other tiers.

By contrast, the VSBA team wants to see those costs grow each year of the three-year package. For teachers and other licensed employees, that would amount to $800 a year for single coverage and $1,600 for all other tires in the final year. For non-licensed workers, the hike would be to $400 for single coverage and $800 for all other tiers in the final year. If the VSBA gets its way, licensed educators would see a doubling of out-of-pocket expenses at the end of the three-year package.

Instead of agreeing with the fact-finder’s out-of-pocket recommendations, the VSBA team argued that the factfinder didn’t really mean what he said and that he must have “made a mistake.” Your team adamantly rejected that argument, and McBroom urged the arbitrators to do the same.

“We are living in extraordinarily difficult and dangerous times.  School employees have been profoundly impacted by the COVID pandemic, along with other essential workers,” McBroom said. Your slate of bargainers “believe that Factfinder John Cochran’s recommendations, submitted after three intensive days of hearing, recognizes the fundamental need to do the least harm, medically and financially, to school employees and their families. Mr. Cochran did not make a mistake, technical or otherwise, in his thinking about the amounts or the potential impact of these amounts.  He weighed the evidence carefully, and he determined that his recommendations would be fair to both parties.”