One area of my responsibilities doesn't lend itself well to publishing - human resources - because it often involves information not appropriate for posting in a public forum. But recent events have provided an opportunity to open those doors, if for just a few posts.
I've taken a personal interest in health care since my first weeks in church ministry. I was months out of college having started as the Administrator of a local church. In my second week on the job I was running behind deadline producing the weekly bulletin. As the hour passed by 6 and 7 p.m., the tightness and pressure on my chest increased to proportions I had never experienced before. It was as if an 18-wheeler had pulled right into my office and parked itself in such a way that the maximum force of it's gross weight was aimed directly at my upper body. Being around 22 at the time I went home to my apartment instead of going to the hospital. I went to the ER the next day and went through the normal round of tests. The doctors called all I've just described as musculoskeletal chest pain. I recovered fine and the EKG-induced hairless patches on my legs eventually grew back. But those few days probably impacted me for life, if at least for the last eight years.
See, I went to the ER not having any understanding of the health care system or the coverage offered by my employer. As the person responsible for handling the benefits of our employees, I've made it a personal mission of mine to do everything I can to educate our employees on their benefits.
From the inquiries I've made, there are a couple of assumptions made among religious non-profit organizations:
- Church and School staffs are paid less than they could make from other organizations
- Those same organizations offer 100% health coverage (often because they figure they pay their employees less in compensation).
Economic shifts in recent years, have and continue to challenge these assumptions. At Grace, we identified several years ago that the road ahead was clear - health care costs would increase at rates exceeding the cost-of-living increase and just about any other reasonable measure - ultimately resulting in every organization having to come to grips with a new ballgame. We made the difficult decision to begin the change when we would be able to do so based on core principles, laying a foundation for how we would navigate future challenges.
- We want health coverage available to our employees when they need it
- We want our employees to have the best care available when they need it
- In an effort to make sure they need it, employees have to participate through contributions and/or deductibles
We put a lot of thought and sincere concern into how these changes would affect our employees and us for that matter. They weren't easy decisions. All of this made a recent hospital visit a fascinating study of the contrasts between the old and new systems - to be explored tomorrow.
