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The Committee on Sustainable Health Benefits (COSHB) that devised the UM's new benefits plan in 2008  had 13 members (not counting the support staff).  One member was a retiree. For the 12 active employees, based on public salary data for 2008, salaries ranged from $297,000 to $66,000.  Ten out of the 12 had salaries over $100,000.

The COSHB's mean salary of $154,000 is about three times the mean salary for a lecturer on the Ann Arbor campus.  It is about five times the mean salary for a lecturer in Dearborn or Flint. 

In arguing for their plan, the COSHB members claimed that it "reduces the burden of premium contributions increases on the University's lowest-paid employees without imposing an undue burden on higher-paid employees . . . ." (COSHB Final Report, 5.4.1).  Indeed, it appears that the COSHB plan avoids any burden at all on highly paid employees.  An employee with the COSHB's average annual salary -- insuring self, spouse and children through UM Premier Care --  would face only an increase of 0.8% in health care premiums in 2011.  As for reducing the burden on lower-paid employees, the COSHB plan is not as successful. For instance, a full-time lecturer in Ann Arbor with the average salary for lecturers on that campus would pay a premium increase of nearly three times as much (2.3% of annual salary) for the same insurance. 

The following charts illustrate just how effectively the COSHB's plan protects the University's higher-paid employees, such as most of the COSHB's members themselves. The charts are based on the COSHB's projections for employee premium contributions in 2011.

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