After months of debate and research and hearing from you in forums, board, council and committee meetings, our Health Plan has been redesigned with a July 1 effective date for most of the changes. It's been a long, and sometimes arduous, path — but it's also been a surprising and educational process for all those who've been involved in the process. We've learned a lot about how our members use their health care plan and what they expect from it.
I'm not going to gloss over the fact that many of the discussions were difficult for me — and I know I can also speak for your fellow members on the National Board, who carefully kept abreast of the Plan's considerations, recommendations and decisions. But there were a number of highlights in this process too. When you review the changes, you will see that the new benefits package will provide all the medical services of the old Plan, as well as maintain all benefits for retirees over 65. On this last point there was complete unanimity: No one wanted to "break the moral commitment with our retired members," as a director put it at one of our open meetings.
Along these lines we have been reacquainted with the core values this Guild was founded on. Over and over again, you told us your other top priorities were to make sure your colleagues who might be going through difficult times would still have top-quality health coverage and that you did not want to raise the eligibility level for coverage. And out of the open meetings came the idea that you would rather pay a small co-pay fee for dependents than change these basic principles. The Plan's Trustees did as you asked them to do. The changes are creative, thoughtful and certainly less severe than the ones that were being discussed only a few months ago. I can't tell you how proud I am to be a member of this organization of Robin Hoods.
One thing we learned is that it is important for us all to become better educated in how to use our Health Plan. In looking at the underlying plan utilization data, it is clear that many members are not aware of the choices they can make to save themselves — and the Plan — money. Also today's environment has created a lot of "enterprising" ventures that are taking money from your pockets. In this and subsequent issues of DGA Magazine, we'll point out some important things to watch out for. Please familiarize yourself with the new Plan's benefits and attend one of the forums that have been scheduled in the days ahead to answer your questions.
Going forward, we will do everything we can to tackle the health care issue on both micro and macro levels. As I've mentioned previously in this column, the DGA has joined the National Coalition for Health Care Reform to help find solutions to this growing problem on the national level. As part of the 2002 negotiations, we secured a significant contribution to the Plan from the producers. You can be certain that we will be addressing this as a major issue with the producers in the 2005 negotiations.
At a time when any news seems like bad news in regards to health care, your Guild — with your help — has taken these important steps to continue to provide you with the highest quality health coverage and, at the same time, to protect the long-term interests of DGA members and the Health Plan.
