Culinary’s unemployed offered low-cost coverage

By Nicole Lucht

Monday, June 22, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Culinary Union members who are unemployed or working part time are being offered a low-cost health insurance that covers doctor visits, prescriptions and laboratory tests.

Culinary boss D. Taylor said the union decided to offer workers, at a cost of $75 a month, a health plan called Life Saver to help them and their families maintain their health while they are unemployed. The plan’s price is discounted because the Culinary is subsidizing the cost.

When the economy was booming, the Culinary represented 60,000 full-time workers at Strip and downtown gaming properties, as well as those working at laundries. Since then, that number has dropped by about 10 percent, he said.

The union is dipping into its general health fund to subsidize the program, which begins July 1.

Taylor doesn’t know how many unemployed workers are going to sign up for the plan, but applications have already started to roll in. The monthly $75 covers the worker and family.

The idea came out of necessity, Taylor said, adding that the insurance, however limited, can help the laid-off worker and family maintain their health.

“We call it a life saver,” he said. “A life saver is not a big boat, but it saves you until you’re back to work and you have a full health plan.

“The idea was really driven by a strong sense that we have to do everything possible to get people through this difficult time.”

Launce Rake, spokesman for Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, said that besides benefiting unemployed union workers, the Culinary’s plan helps to take the strain off charities and government programs that assist with health care.

Nevada is No. 2 in the number of people ages 18 to 64 who don’t have health insurance, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. Nearly 1 in 4 people in Nevada lack health insurance.

With the recession, thousands of Nevadans have lost insurance since January, said Larry Matheis, executive director of the Nevada State Medical Association and a board member of the Nevada Public Health Foundation.

“Anything that provides coverage — this is really a stopgap measure, I think — is desirable so that people are able to continue to get necessary medical services without becoming, in effect, bankrupt,” he said. “The extension of the coverage is a significant step.”

The Culinary’s health and welfare trust fund board, composed of management and union leaders, had to approve the insurance subsidy.

“There’s a recognition there’s a crisis of proportions we’d never seen before and we didn’t want to have a situation where children, for example, couldn’t get their (needed) medicine,” Taylor said.

There is an option for workers who are involuntarily working less than full time to pay to keep their full-time health benefits. Those workers can also select the Life Saver plan.

And those laid-off workers who have chosen not to pay union dues can also pay into the plan, as can those who are working reduced hours, Taylor said.

A version of this story appears in this week’s In Business Las Vegas, a sister publication of the Sun.