Friday, February 20, 2009

and just like that, our health insurance no longer provides coverage for abortion

at four pm on a friday, i received the following email.

Memorandum

Date: February 20, 2009
To: Faculty/Staff in Blue Cross Plan
From: Diane Sweeney, Assistant HR Director for Benefits, Compensation & Risk
Re: Notice of a Modification in USF's Blue Cross PPO Plan.
___________________________________

You are receiving this notice because you are currently enrolled in USF's Blue Cross PPO Medical Plan.

Effective March 1, 2009, this plan will no longer provide coverage for abortion or abortion services except when the life of the mother is endangered. There will be no coverage for RU486 under the plan.

Please review the complete Summary of Material Modification at the following link: http://www.usfca.edu/hr/SMM_USF_21309.pdf

march 7 update!

on march 4, 2009, i received the following email:

To: Participants in the University of San Francisco Self-funded Medical Plan with Blue Cross

From: Human Resources

Recently, the Office of Human Resources notified you that effective March 1, 2009, the University of San Francisco's self-funded medical plan administered by Anthem Blue Cross would no longer provide coverage for abortion or abortion services except when the life of the mother is endangered. The notice also stated that there would be no further coverage for RU486.

Thanks to all of you who responded to express concern about, or support for, the change to the plan and for those who met with representatives from Human Resources.

We understand that this issue is both sensitive and complex, and are cancelling the March 1, 2009 effective date to allow for a more comprehensive re-examination of the situation. We will keep you updated as that evaluation progresses.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Diane Sweeney at x2440 or Martha Peugh-Wade at x2444.

9 comments:

Leslie M-B said...

Unfrigginbelievable--and yet so completely believable. . .if it were 2006 and not 2009.

Anonymous said...

Wow... good thing I didn't change to BC/BS this year... but, gee, I wonder if Kaiser does... Interesting that they don't explain any reason for this change -- like, was it a USF decision made during contract negotiation or was it some decision that BC/BS made? Interesting. Very disturbing overall.

Ms. Baron said...

What a backwards decision. In 2009 a woman can't have her personal decisions about what to do with her body covered by insurance? Poor policy change. For sure.

jo(e) said...

This was a decision made by university officials rather than the health insurance company, right?

Disturbing, in either case.

Anonymous said...

Haha, the student health clinic at St. Mary's doesn't do birth control either.

Anonymous said...

I... can only think of obscenities in response to that.

BERKELEY. WTF?

Paula Dollar said...

All Catholic universities are under pressure from the Conservatives on this issue. Some you win, some you don't. Military women face the same issue.....even when stationed overseas. Their medical coverage does not include abortions. (Federal funds cannot be used for abortions.) I believe Fr. Privett walks a tightrope on a lot of issues with Conservative Catholics. He just couldn't prevail on this one.

Anonymous said...

Garnered from Google (the same place you have to go to find any information about the recent rapes on campus) -- It looks like the administration believed it already wasn't available to us from Blue Cross but it still is available from Kaiser. I'm wondering if they can just yank a medical coverage under our contract with just one week's notice in the middle of a plan year. I believe union reps are looking into it.

Anonymous said...

thanks to everyone for your comments and your insight. i hope we can continue using this space and others to figure out what happened and what our options are.