Complex calculations used to determine health insurance eligibility leave many university employees without coverage, and New Mexico higher education unions say state lawmakers should step in.

Lawmakers previously restructured health insurance for K-12 employees so workers pay 20% of their premiums while the state pays 80%. But that change does not apply to many higher-education employees hired as part-time workers, adjunct faculty or temporary staff.

Image

John Dyrcz, a political organizer for the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico, said higher-education workers are weighing whether to leave colleges and universities for K-12 jobs because of benefits and pay.

“When we speak to higher ed folks, we regularly hear that they’re considering leaving the higher-education space to go to a K-12 teaching setting because of the stability of pay and benefits,” Dyrcz said. “So higher ed is really this last piece of the puzzle.”

Most university-level employees are required to pay up to 40% of their health insurance premiums and do not receive dental or vision benefits.

Unlike most higher education institutions in the state, the University of New Mexico offers a health plan to eligible graduate students.

Zach Strasberg, a research and teaching assistant and a member of the state’s Higher Education Labor United committee, said lawmakers should expand health insurance coverage to level the playing field.

“We’re the only grad school in the state where insurance is offered, so nobody else has health insurance in the state,” Strasberg said. “And so it just doesn’t really make a lot of sense that UNM offers health insurance and every other school in the state doesn’t.”

Meanwhile, the UNM faculty union is pushing back against a recently announced 13.1% increase in monthly health insurance premiums, which union members say will burden employees with extra costs.