SINDUJA KILARU/Daily

Fourteen-year-old Yara Almatroud, a Ann Arbor resident, works on her piece during a Korean clay art class hosted 
at the University of Michigan Musuem of Art Wednesday.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Thursday, March 31, 2016 — 3A

3-News

News 
 

Sustainability 
progress outlined 
in annual report

The University released 

its 2015 Sustainability 
Progress Report Wednesday, 
highlighting their efforts for 
a healthier and greener planet 
and University environment.

The report outlined progress 

the University has made with 
regard to sustainability goals 
for climate, waste prevention 
and community awareness, 
according to the University 
press release. 

“Like the very best qualities 

of the University of Michigan, 
our work in sustainability is 
more than the sum of our many 
excellent parts,” said University 
President Mark Schlissel in the 
press release. 

Multiple efforts are being 

funded by the University to 
encourage sustainability and 
progress in areas including 
waste and greenhouse gas 
reduction. 

There are multiple goals 

for the University’s future 
sustainability programs, 
including protecting the Huron 
River through stormwater 
control strategies, reducing 
chemical application by 36 
percent and purchasing more 
University food from local and 
sustainable sources, according 
to the report.

Lincoln Project 
brought to campus

The Lincoln Project, 

a project focusing on the 
importance of access to public 
higher education, will come 
to the University’s Ann Arbor 
campus this Monday. 

Former University President 

Mary Sue Coleman and former 
chancellor of the University 
of California, Berkeley Robert 
Birgeneau have led the Lincoln 
Project for the last three years 
to draw attention to the effects 
that lower state investment in 
public higher education could 
have, as well as the role that the 
government plays in funding 
public research universities.

Following its introduction 

to campus Monday, the 
Lincoln Project will make 
recommendations encouraging 
the development of federal, 
corporate and philanthropic 
financial sources for 
maintaining and establishing 
public higher education 
nationwide, according to the 
University press release.

The program will take place 

in the Vandenberg Room of 
the Michigan League at 5 
p.m. and will explore multiple 
questions regarding how public 
universities can address the 
financial challenges they face.

Research suggests 
personality could 
impact e-mail style

Recent University research 

found personality traits will 
influence how people respond 
to typos and grammatical 
errors.

According to the 

University press release, 
while extroverted people 
are more likely to overlook 
typos and grammatical errors, 
introverted people judge those 
who send the e-mail errors 
more harshly.

Linguistics and Psychology 

Prof. Julie Boland said in a 
press release that the study 
examined social judgments 
made by readers among 83 
participants of the study. The 
participants read typos and 
grammatical errors and then 
were asked to rate the e-mail 
in terms of the friendliness and 
level of intelligence from the 
sender they perceived.

Intuitively, those 

who reported grammar 
as important prior to 
participating in the 
experiment were also more 
likely to be bothered by errors 
following the experiment. 

—ALEXA ST. JOHN

NEWS BRIEFS
KORE AN CL AY

Gerber, who previously worked 
with the center, introduced 
the event and the center’s 
goals in research and the state 
government.

“The center considers itself 

a think-and-do tank,” Gerber 
said. “Its primary mission is to 
go beyond research.”

Gerber said events such 

as this aim to collect data for 
research in order to push a non-
partisan, centrist policy agenda 
in the state legislature.

“This 
is 
an 
important 

part of what we do,” Gerber 
said. “Engaging in in-depth 
conversations about important 
issues with lots of different 
people around the state.”

Center 
Outreach 

Coordinator Dwayne Barnes, 
who moderated the polling, said 
this event is the fourth in their 
larger community conversation 
campaign. He added that the 
center will put on similar 
events around the state of 
Michigan for the remainder of 
the calendar year. 

According to data provided 

by the center, only 20 percent 
of Michigan residents currently 
trust the state government 
“most of the time.” The area 
where participants typically 
placed the least trust in state 

government was in their ability 
to protect public health. All 
25 people polled Wednesday 
answered that their trust was 
“low” or “very low” in this 
area of the state government, 
and the Flint water crisis was 
discussed as a possible cause of 
this significant distrust.

The 
participants 
placed 

the most trust in the state 
government to foster economic 
growth. However, even then, 
only 32 percent said they had a 
“high” level of trust.

Barnes 
said 
location 

within Michigan could affect 
participant responses due to 
varying political beliefs in 
certain geographic areas.

“As we go across the state, no 

conversation is the same, and 
that’s what makes this job so 
unique,” he said.

Rackham student Jennifer 

Mann said she participated 
in the event because she 
had heard about the center 
and 
was 
curious 
about 

how they facilitated these 
conversations.

“I think you’re hearing from 

a lot of different viewpoints and 
different voter bases,” Mann 
said. “We’re coming at things 
from different perspectives, but 
you end up hearing somewhat 
similar threads throughout, 
which is kind of encouraging to 
hear about a population living 
in a similar area.”

FORD
From Page 1A

for benefits, said the Benefits 
Office works with vendors to 
develop plans for aspects such 
as dental and visual coverage, 
prescription 
drugs 
and 

retirement.

“The 
Benefits 
Office 
is 

responsible 
for 
developing 

strategy 
and 
developing 

subsequently our health and 
welfare plans for all University 
faculty and staff,” Holcomb 
said.

Keith Bruhnsen, prescription 

drug plan assistant director 
and manager for the Benefits 
Office, said the prescription 
plan specifically covers nearly 
103,000 beneficiaries, including 
faculty and staff members, 
retirees and the dependents of 
these individuals.

“The prescription plan is a 

self-insured, self-administered 
plan by the University in which 
we provide coverage for out-
patient prescription drugs for 
all of our beneficiaries that are 
enrolled in any of the various 
health plans that we offer,” 
Bruhnsen said.

The prescription plan is part 

of University efforts to limit 
how much beneficiaries pay 
for health care, according to 
the Benefits office. The plan 
recommends a number of ways 
to save money on prescriptions 
such as requesting generic 
medications when possible to 
pay the lowest available copay, 
using the preferred drug list 
to pay a lower copay on brand 
name prescriptions and using 
mail order programs to save 
much of the original copay 
costs.

“The University took control 

of managing our prescription 
drug plan back in 2003 so 
that we could maintain both a 
quality plan for the University 
and its members, but also 
provide 
some 
strong 
cost-

containment strategies in terms 
of managing the plan toward 
appropriate use and utilizing 
the internal expertise of the 
faculty and staff here to help us 
in our operations and strategic 
planning,” Bruhnsen said.

Prior to 2003, prescription 

drugs were embedded within 
each medical plan, he said. 
Each medical plan — whether 
through 
Blue 
Cross, 
Care 

Choices HMO Plan, HAP HMO 
Plan or other plans — would 
monitor and manage its own 
drug plans, but coverage of 
drugs was sometimes different 
from one plan to another. 
Members were moving from 
plan to plan in order to get 
the coverage they needed at a 
particular time.

As the cost of prescription 

drugs increased, a University 
task force studied these plans 
and made a recommendation 
to executive officers to include 
a prescription drug plan with 
other benefits to better manage 
cost trends. 

Along with general economic 

inflation and use of specialty 

drugs, an increase in Food and 
Drug Administration approval 
for 
more 
specialty 
drugs 

also contributed to the cost 
increase, Holcomb said. These 
specialty drugs require careful 
management, dispensing and 
monitoring, and can often 
result 
in 
dramatic 
health 

care improvements for some 
conditions.

In 
particular 
Holcomb 

cited the release of specialty 
drugs for treating hepatitis 
C a year ago, which cost 
patients nearly $90,000 for 
an eight- to 12-week course 
of treatment. Between 95 and 
100 percent of the patients who 
used this prescription drug 
received complete remission 
of the disease, indicating the 
necessity for the prescription 
drug plan to cover particularly 
costly and specialty drugs.

Though only 1.6 percent 

of the 949,000 prescriptions 
that 
were 
dispensed 
last 

year through the plan are 
specialty 
medications, 
$40 

million was spent in 2015 
on 
these 
prescriptions 

through the plan. This was 
a significant percentage — 
about 37 percent — of the total 
cost of the prescription drug 
plan, Bruhnsen said. Due to 
upcoming developments in the 
pharmaceutical industry, he 
said he expects this percentage 
to increase to nearly 50 percent 
of the prescription drug plan’s 
total cost.

Because 
of 
these 
cost 

increases, the University holds a 
separate contract for both mail-
order pharmacy and specialty 
pharmacy, due to it being a more 
cost-effective 
arrangement. 

For example, NoviXus, a mail 
order pharmacy, supplies larger 
quantities 
of 
maintenance 

medication at a reduced copay. 
Maintenance 
medications 

include those taken on a regular 
basis, such as medications 
for high-cholesterol or birth 
control. The University uses 
its own hospital pharmacy 
specialty service for narcotic-
based medications that cannot 
be shipped via the NoviXux 
mail-order pharmacy.

“(Mail-order prescriptions) 

are more cost-effective than 
retail 
pharmacies 
because 

they automate all of their 
processing and they mail it and 
it’s very convenient,” Holcomb 
said. “They usually turn the 
prescription around in less than 
a day and often people receive it 
the next day in their mailbox. 
They have…low error rate and 
very high satisfaction from the 
surveys that we’ve done with 
our membership.”

Ultimately, employees and 

other beneficiaries are not 
personally 
penalized 
due 

to these increasing costs — 
members have the same level 
of 
cost-sharing 
copayment 

regardless 
of 
whether 
the 

medication is a low-cost or 
specialty medication — but in 
general, the cost of health care 
will continue to increase due 
to these medicinal advances, 
according to Holcomb. 

DRUGS
From Page 1A