Some part-time University employees could gain access to low-cost health insurance benefits under a measure unanimously passed by the Virginia House of the Delegates last Wednesday.
The bill now awaits consideration by the Senate Finance Committee.
The original legislation, sponsored by Del. Tom Hogan, R-Halifax, would have provided access to benefits for all state part-time employees. It was amended in the House General Laws committee, however, to encompass only salaried part-time employees and not those being paid on an hourly basis.
Currently, full-time state employees receive health benefits, which at the University are administered through an independent plan in which employees contribute less than 20 percent of the total cost of insurance. The University covers the remaining 80 percent of the cost.
Such plans often are offered at one-third the cost of unaffiliated health insurance coverage, Hogan said.
"It's cheaper than on the open market," he said.
If passed, the bill would allow salaried part-time employees to receive such coverage, though the state would not be allowed to subsidize the cost as is currently done for full-time employees.
Hogan said the measure to include hourly employees was amended in committee in order to secure passage to the Senate, after which opportunities would remain to broaden the scope of the bill.
Similar past proposals by Del. Jim Shuler, D-Alleghany, have failed to pass the General Assembly, Hogan added.
Jan Cornell, president of the staff union at the University, said part-time employees have been pushing for such benefits for years, with the University unwilling to offer them coverage.
The University currently is unable to offer access to its health insurance pool for part-time employees because of an agreement made with the Commonwealth in 1995, said Tom Gausvik, chief human resource officer at the University.
"We're somewhat constrained by what the state will allow us to do," he said.
That year, the University chose to administer health benefits on its own, rather than through the state. The agreement specified that the University could not offer its employees benefits unavailable to other state employees, though an exception was made in 1996 for the Medical Center, which was granted conditional autonomy from the state.
As a result of the exemption, part-time salaried employees in the Medical Center who work more than 20 hours a week can choose to receive health benefits.
A potential drawback of the proposed legislation is that most part-time employees may not be able to afford the full cost of health insurance, Gausvik said, with many choosing to do so only when seriously ill. Such "adverse selection" by part-time employees could drive up costs for others in the plan.
Cornell expressed similar concerns.
"Part-time employees don't make much money," she said. "I don't see why they should have to pay for all of it."
Gausvik estimated in most health benefit pools, 80 percent of the participants end up subsidizing the cost of treatment for the other 20 percent.
"Anytime you increase your enrollment, your costs go up," he said.
At the University, over 13,000 full-time employees receive health benefits. The new measure would extend opportunities for coverage to 266 salaried part-time employees, leaving out as many as 1,000 who are paid on an hourly basis.
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