The University Benefits Committee (UBC) focused on two primary objectives during the 1996-97 academic year. First, it completed an in-depth study of the faculty pension plan and benefits-related retirement incentives. Second, it again reviewed and modified the University's health plan offerings in light of changes in the health insurance marketplace and the expressed wishes of Harvard faculty and staff for new health plan options.

Issuing the committee's second annual report, Provost Harvey V. Fineberg, who chairs the UBC, said, "I have been immensely impressed by the level of collaborative problem-solving achieved by this team of faculty and staff. The committee has wrestled with a wide range of benefits issues, some requiring absorption of a great deal of data about benefits policy and best practices, and they have reached reasonable and clear decisions.

"This is a model that works. The UBC example may help us to develop other participatory processes that involve members of the Harvard community who have expertise and interest, and can provide fair and helpful analysis, in resolving other issues of University-wide concern."

The UBC report summarizes the Committee's recommendations on benefits policies and the work of its subcommittees on retirement, health plans, and part-time benefits. The Retirement Subcommittee focused this year on the effect of the Harvard benefits package on a faculty member's decision to retire. The subcommittee determined that the faculty pension plan and other retirement-related benefits do not play a key role in the decision to retire -- but that salary and a feeling of institutional service and belonging serve as powerful incentives for faculty to continue to work.

As a result, the UBC recommended no changes to the faculty pension plan or retirement-related benefits at this time. However, the Retirement Subcommittee will continue to monitor retirement incentive plans and related benefit policies at other universities, examine retirement patterns within Harvard, and consider recommendations that may arise from the Faculties.

The UBC Subcommittee on Health Plans, chaired by Peter Marsden, professor of sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, has been working to increase the range of health plan options for faculty and staff. Marsden says that the subcommittee has worked for the last two years to add options that allow greater choice of physicians than is typical within HMO plans. The primary result of this is the presence of four new point-of-service (POS) plans among the options available to faculty and staff.

The subcommittee is also seeking to stabilize health plan choices. "We hope that we have reached the point where further changes to health plans will not be necessary in the near future," Marsden explained. "But changes in the health care marketplace have made that difficult." This year, for example, no Blue Cross plan could be offered, since Blue Cross would not offer an insured plan to Harvard. (It did offer to provide claims processing and other administrative services for a plan like the former HMO Blue had. The proposed "working rates" for such a plan were 50 percent higher than the 1997 HMO Blue premiums, and nonetheless would have left the University and/or enrolled faculty and staff responsible for self-insuring any costs of health care in excess of these premiums.)

New options resulting from recommendations from the Subcommittee on Health Plans were made available during special open enrollment periods and through the annual benefits election period that just concluded. The new choices are: a long-term care insurance plan; new retiree health plans, including the Harvard University Group Health Program (HUGHP) senior plan; the introduction of the HUGHP point-of-service option; and through Fallon Health Plan, the addition of another HMO and point-of-service choice. Options now feature HMO or point-of-service options from four health care providers -- HUGHP, Harvard/Pilgrim, Tufts, and Fallon. In addition, on the recommendation of the UBC, the University changed its policy with regard to benefits for part-time employees. Harvard now has one schedule of contribution rates for medical, dental, and retiree medical insurance for all faculty and staff regardless of time status.

Those who would like a copy of the full UBC report or the reports from the subcommittees on health plans, retirement, and part-time benefits may request them from the Provost's office by calling 496-5775 or by e-mailing marsha_semuels@harvard.edu. The reports will also be available by mid-December online at the Web site for the Provost's office: www.provost.harvard.edu/ubc.

Members of the University Benefits Committee:

Harvey V. Fineberg, Chair

Stephen Bradley

Richard Cannon

Karen Davis

Gary Feldman

Peter Marsden

Daniel Meltzer

Joel Monell

Rita Moore

Polly Price

Eleanor Shore

Elisabeth Swain

Dennis Thompson

David Wise

Marsha Semuels, Staff