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Minneapolis (ELCA)-SS* — Moving against the tide of the U.S. healthcare industry's illness model, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Board of Pensions staff and trustees discussed plans for the board's health and wellness initiative. At their July 30-Aug. 1 meeting, board trustees heard Bradley Joern, the Board's health actuary, describe potential health plan design changes for 2005. Rather than simply pay to get people well after they're ill, these changes would promote plan members staying healthy.
"We want to keep the ELCA plan affordable and also promote health and wellness within the ELCA," Joern said. "It would be nice if good health were a reward in itself, but we know incentives help." Such incentives may mean in the future that plan members could include as eligible expenses such things as the cost of weight loss programs, spiritual direction, smoking cessation programs and exercise equipment, Joern said. Additional study will determine the role of incentives in a wellness program, he added.
The pension unit launched a "Healthy Leaders Enhance Lives" campaign. The campaign included the September unveiling of a wellness Web site customized for plan members and other ELCA rostered leaders — a site operated by the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. The site is a joint effort of the ELCA Board of Pensions and the ELCA Division for Ministry. In addition, plan members will receive a monthly health newsletter. Other resources and tool kits for synods, congregations, institutions and plan members are possible in the future.
The health and wellness effort "is really about Romans 7," said the Rev. Ronald T. Glusenkamp, the Board's vice president for customer outreach. "The good [healthy] things we want to do, we don't; and the bad things we don't want to do, we do." The health and wellness initiative has three stages: educating members in 2003, members setting personal health goals in 2004 and a redesign of the health plan to emphasize wellness in 2005.
"We don't need to raise the stress of our clergy," Glusenkamp said. "We want to give them a 'get to' and not a 'got to.' We realize they're part of systems in congregations so we need to encourage healthy congregations too."
Trustees and staff have discussed health and wellness at several meetings. "This is really exciting," said the Rev. Larry C. Kassebaum, a trustee from Mesa, Ariz. "We've been talking about this for so long. Now we can see some of the details."
"I love what I see" on the health and wellness initiative, said Nancy J. Haberstich, Lincoln, Neb. "Please keep the creativity going. I'm proud we're [establishing a relationship] with Mayo. Everyone knows Mayo. By putting their reputation with ours, we all look good."
The Rev. Jon R. Lee, a trustee from Dallas, also urged attention to depression. "We need to address emotional health too, not just physical. Clergy are subject to more depression," he said.
A wellness wheel adopted by the board and developed through an Inter-Lutheran Coordinating Committee on Health and Wellness includes emotional, physical, vocational, intellectual and social/interpersonal well-being wrapped around by spiritual well-being and with baptism as its center.
The trustees also:
+ Approved 2004 health plan contribution rates, which represent an overall increase of 10 percent for sponsored members in the six rate classes. The disability plan rate will increase from 2.2 percent to 2.5 percent in 2004. The administration and retiree support rate will decrease from 1.7 percent to 1.4 percent. The survivor plan rate was suspended for the third year in a row because of sufficient funding.
Total incurred claims for active members are projected to rise from $89.5 million in 2003 to $104.1 million in 2004, an increase of 16.3 percent, Joern said, adding that the Board's healthy contingency reserves mean the rate increase can be lower than it otherwise might have been.
+ Terminated the AELC Retirement Plan, freeing its members to elect cash or the rollover distribution options. The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) was one of three church bodies that merged to form the ELCA in 1988. The AELC plan offered limited fund choices. Its members now can elect the broader range of services offered by the ELCA plan.
+ Endorsed an interim report that outlines possible changes to the benefits program to make it more flexible for seminaries and other large employers and also to provide plan options for lay employees in congregations.
+ Elected Bradley C. Engel, Burlington, Wis., board chair; Mary S. Ranum, Circle Pines, Minn., vice chair; Jane C. von Seggern, Atlanta, secretary; and Karen S. Southward, Pickerington, Ohio, treasurer.
+ Heard more about the Special Needs Retirement Fund, created to help retired clergy with low pensions. An option for other retired clergy to contribute a portion of their benefits continues to make the fund grow.
* Sonia C. Solomonson is managing editor for The Lutheran, the magazine of the ELCA.