Now Blue Cross/Blue Shield is cancelling the UUA's plan. No national insurance carrier is willing to pick up our group, because the 85 people in the group are older and include many people with pre-existing conditions. Rev. Mero talked BC/BS into extended the group for another year, but then the group folds. Because the entire group will cease to exist, there will be no COBRA or other option for continuing coverage.

The group has undesirable demographics for insurance companies:

• 35 people between the ages of 60-69
• 26 between 50-59
• 22 between 40-49
• 3 between 30-39
• no one younger

In addition, a group of 79 retired UU ministers have "MediGap" coverage with BC/BS, which is planning to cancel this group as well.

Many religious denominations face the same problems, unless they can:

• Require that all clergy and other church employees belong to the group, so that the group demographics are better;
• Subsidize insurance rates for group participants; or
• Self-insure (which Rev. Mero estimates would require $10M)

A retired UU minister, Rev. Ed Harris, has been hired by the UUA to help the ministers who are losing insurance coverage find new policies. He's also talking to congregations about insurance coverage for church employees.

Some ministers and churches have been able to get health insurance by joining their local Chambers of Commerce, many of which have insurance groups. Some have found other groups, such as the National Writers Union, which offer insurance.

However, new policies, and policies for small groups, do not cover pre-existing conditions and do not cover same-gender partners.

The UUA also has a group for its 105 employees, with Harvard/Pilgrim or Etna/US HealthCare. But this group can't be combined with the soon-to-be-defunct group of ministers: if the UUA employees group were switched to BC/BS, BC/BS would cancel then entire combined group. And Harvard/Pilgrim and Etna/US HealthCare don't want to accept the ministers group.

No one has a solution for this situation. All the ministers and others present thanked Rev. Mero for almost-singlehandedly extending the coverage for as long as possible (at least a year past when the groups were due to be cancelled) and felt that the UUA has done everything possible to address this insurance crisis.

Information: info@uua.org