[40] in UA Exec
Re: Task Force Report: Medical copay
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (John Hawkinson)
Sat Sep 19 04:21:22 2009
Date: Sat, 19 Sep 2009 04:20:47 -0400
From: John Hawkinson <jhawk@MIT.EDU>
To: Daniel Hawkins <hwkns@MIT.EDU>
Cc: UA Executive Board <ua-exec@MIT.EDU>, CSL <ua-csl@MIT.EDU>
In-Reply-To: <9d4f87ed0909190112k9682c64k37ec970b07f1735b@mail.gmail.com>
Daniel Hawkins <hwkns@MIT.EDU> wrote on Sat, 19 Sep 2009
at 04:12:12 -0400 in <9d4f87ed0909190112k9682c64k37ec970b07f1735b@mail.gmail.com>:
> So I went to the first open forum about the Institute Wide Planning
> Task Force report, and this issue (which has been loosely assigned
> to CSL) was brought up. Liz, please correct me if I'm wrong (I
> didn't take notes), but I believe there was a doctor there from MIT
> Medical who spoke on the issue,
That was Dr. Bill Kettyle, the Head of MIT Medical.
> and he basically said:
>
> * The copay changes will not affect students
Except for medication, [which is not a change].
> * The copay changes are for specialty care only, not primary care
And he want on to note that "primary care, writ large, includes
internal medicine, pediatics, [ob/gyn]." And that "Many of the other
-ologies" would have a copay effective January 1, 2010,
including "neurology, gastrointerology," etc.
> * The copay changes are mandated by new laws, so they are not
> negotiable and are already being implemented
More precisely, they are mandated by Massachusetts "mental health
parity laws," which he said were not new, but are newly going to
be affecting MIT, and that though we are forced to do this,
"we have tailored it to meet our needs" (by the above). There appears
therefore to be some flexibility on how the implementation works.
--jhawk@mit.edu News Editor
John Hawkinson The Tech +1 617 797 0250
http://tech.mit.edu
> My questions are:
>
> * Are these things true? If so, why was this "idea" even in the report?
> * Is this issue essentially dead? What can we do about it, and do we even
> care?
>
> Discuss.
>
> -hwkns
