HUGHP Dental is now going to be separate from the HUGHP medical plan.

"It's going to become more expensive," John says. "The amount that we're going to pay is going to go up by some hundreds of dollars next year."

The administration freely admits that one goal of the changes is to encourage employees to move to the lowest cost plan, HCHP.

"What we were trying to do was address incentives to encourage people to opt for the most cost-effective health care," says Vice President for Administration Sally H. Zeckhauser, the second task force chair. "If you tie [the contribution] to the lowest-cost plan, you encourage people to move."

Like most HMOs, HCHP requires its members to see doctors who belong to the plan. And switching plans may mean switching doctors.

"It seems they're trying to force people to migrate to the cheaper plans," Rathburn says. "I've had my doctor for three or four years. It's hard to get up the nerve to switch."

But for those with serious or chronic health problems, the prospect is even worse. Some plans do not accept new members with pre-existing conditions.

"I have breast cancer," says Judith Ross, an HUCTW and Business School employee who is insured under her husband's plan at his employer, the Raytheon company. "Long-term disability is something I signed up for when I was hired, not knowing I was going to be sick, but figuring there was always a chance I was going to get run over by a truck in Harvard Square."

But cuts in federal defense spending have made Ross concerned about the security of her husband's job.

"I can't always count on Raytheon. What if my husband gets laid off?" Ross says. "But to be honest, I don't know what it would be like to have to go on a new plan. Preexisting conditions make it tough for people to get health care."

For now, though, Ross and her husband are going to stay under Raytheon's Blue Cross Blue Shield Master Health Plus plan, under which she pays one and a half percent of premiums.

"It's a better deal because we pay so little," she says."

Some employees say they are determined to avoid Harvard's health plans. One veteran police office left Harvard's benefits program and joined his wife's Blue Cross Blue Shield plan 10 years ago.

"I can go to any doctor I want," he says. "I pay three dollars for medicine, three dollars for office visits. Dental, everything, is on here."

He says he left the Harvard plan after his adult daughter became ill.