The dramatic increases in the employee expense associated with the healthcare insurance plans being offered by IU for 2012 require immediate discussion and action on part of the IU Faculty. Individual employee premium contributions are scheduled to rise by several-fold, new deductibles have been added and the copay schedules have changed such that the employee will be responsible for a considerably higher proportion of the costs incurred. In addition, a ratcheting scale for determining employee premiums has been established based on base salary level. 1) These changes have been justified by the administration on the premises: IU has kept employee premiums artificially low for the past decade during a time when healthcare costs have increased at an annual rate of approximately 10%. 2) The projected outlays for healthcare will go up by 14.9% for IU in the coming year. On Oct. 25 Dr. Neil Theobald, VP and CFO, met with the IFC and Staff Council in an emergency joint session (closed) to present data supporting the need for the changes in the healthcare plans and payment schedules. After his presentation, Dr. Theobald opened the floor for a question and answer session of about 1 hour. Many at that meeting felt that Dr. Theobald had not made an adequate case for the projected changes. The data he presented were inconsistent with the projected 9% increase in healthcare costs based on national data; he was unable to present data comparing the self-insurance model used by IU with typical group plans offered by private insurance companies; he professed to be unaware that new deductibles had been added to the Anthem Blue plan ($400 per person); he had not considered the difficulty an employee would face in estimating his/her Tax Saving Benefit projections when copays are scheduled on a percentage (20-30%) basis rather than a fixed amount ($30-$45); he admitted not accounting for the effect of increased premiums for a single (earner) parent, head of household compared to a two-parent (two-earners) family choosing the employee plus children option. All in all, it appeared that Dr. Theobald had not done proper due diligence in devising the scheduled changes. According to the constitution of the IU faculty, a meeting of the UFC may be called upon "petition signed by voting faculty members numbering no less than 5% of all voting faculty members". We now call an emergency meeting of the University Faculty Council to discuss a recommendation to the Administration and Trustees that the proposed changes be reconsidered, that changes be limited to a 9% increase in premiums, that the IU/employee contribution ratio remain the same, and that an Insurance Oversight Board be established to review any proposed changes. Furthermore, we petition that this emergency meeting occur before the period of Open Enrollment (Nov. 7-18, 2011)