Elderly members of the Harvard University Group Health Program (HUGHP)—an HMO available only to active Harvard employees—recently received a letter from UHS Director Dr. David S. Rosenthal ’59 reminding them that the program’s retirement care plan had been discontinued.

If the letter’s recipients—all employees over 60 years old—do not switch to a different provider before retirement, the letter warned, they will be left with no coverage.

Rosenthal’s letter is a reminder to current HUGHP subscribers that the First Seniority retirement plan was terminated in September, which left 287 retired Harvard employees scrambling to find new health providers for 2004.

According to Rosenthal, UHS administrators decided to ax the plan because such a small number of subscribers presented too high a risk for the University.

“This decision was not an easy one to make,” the letter said, “but the financial risk associated with low enrollment and inadequate federal funding made our continued involvement with this plan impossible.”

In its place, Rosenthal offered the employees several alternatives, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield’s MedEx supplement, which would allow retirees to keep their doctors and continue using all UHS services for a potentially increased monthly premium.

Rosenthal also offered two Medicare-managed care plans: Harvard Pilgrim Health Plan’s First Seniority Program and Tufts Health Plan’s Secure Horizons, both of which would require users to abandon UHS in favor of a new primary health provider.

“The benefits are very comparable,” said Merry Touborg, spokesperson for Harvard University Human Resources. “The plans offer many of the same things.”

The old plan’s dissolution, however, has drawn fire from some members of the faculty, including Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn, who spoke out about the change at Tuesday’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences meeting.

“The incentives for retirement are few, very few,” he said at the meeting. “The risks of retirement are great.”

Despite the three alternatives outlined in Rosenthal’s letter, Mendelsohn said he worried about the stability and reliability of the Harvard health care system.

“We’re told that we can continue to use [University Health Services] facilities and that the University will fund MedEx or other plans,” Mendelsohn said. “There’s no indication that this too cannot be changed unilaterally if the costs get too high.”

According to Professor of Sociology Peter V. Marsden, who serves as chair of the Health Plans Subcommittee of the University Benefits Committee, UHS does not deserve such criticism because the change will not affect services.

“Nobody has to find an alternative source of retirement care. All the people who were in the [HUGHP] First Seniority program are able to continue receiving the care at UHS,” he said.

According to Marsden, the financial turbulence that pushed UHS to discontinue HUGHP is reflective of a larger problem in America.

“The costs are different from what they were a year ago, but the costs of maintaining Medicare and senior HMOs have been rising precipitously over the past several years,” he said. “There have been quite a large number of these plan closures across the U.S.”

Murmurs of criticism from faculty have persisted, however, according to Rosenthal.

“I heard from the benefits office that there were a couple of faculty members that were concerned that their retirement benefits were changing,” he said. “But that’s not true at all. Anything that changes causes a little bit of concern.”

Erving Research Professor of Chemistry William Klemperer ’50 said he was surprised at the change, but like most HUGHP members, he will remain with UHS by switching to the MedEx plan.

“They dropped me, and I had to join a different plan,” he said. “I thought I was happy with the HUGHP plan.”

—Staff writer Leon Neyfakh can be reached at neyfakh@fas.harvard.edu.