Concordia University’s student union is under fire for questionable changes to its health care plan. Its current provider accuses the union of leaving when its execs didn’t get bribes, and has asked university administration to take over.
Quebec Student Health Alliance (ASEQ) has provided a health and dental insurance plan to the Montreal university since the company’s 1996 inception. ASEQ serves about 400,000 students in over 50 unions. The company negotiates plans with insurance companies by divvying allocated funds and assessing the effectiveness of complex insurance plans.
Concordia Student Union’s health insurance contract, worth $2.9 million, was the first contract entrusted to ASEQ, who now claims CSU has switched insurance providers.
In a January interview, CSU president Keyana Kashfi told student newspaper the Concordian she had renegotiated a health plan.
Elie Chivi, CSU VP communications, told the Concordian in a Tuesday article that the union has not replaced its insurance provider, but has contracted consulting firm Morneau Sobeco “to go out and look for different health plans for us.”
A Dec. 11 document shows the union appointed Morneau Sobeco, in association with a CFS-owned company, as consultants to the student benefit plans for next year. “All commissions will be payable to Morneau Sobeco,” reads the document, written three months before Kashfi was hired as a CFS staffer.
Chivi also said that ASEQ “allowed the CSU’s current health plan provider to earn a surplus profit that is potentially in excess of one million dollars over the past three years.” Lev Bukhman, executive director of ASEQ, said his company’s role involves managing funds allocated to insurance companies.
A letter declaring ASEQ’s loss of confidence in CSU and Kashfi was sent Monday and forwarded to the university president and dean of students.
The letter, written by Bukhman, has been posted on Macleans’ blogger Joey Coleman’s personal blog and cites “extraordinary incidents involving [Kashfi] and members of [her] administration, which are reprehensible”.
Bukhman alleged in a signed affidavit that he was asked last March by Stephen Rosenshein, an election slate campaign manager, to contribute $25,000. The funds would be used to support campaigns of candidates running in last year’s election, including current prez Kashfi. Bukhman said Rosenshein inferred that CSU would consider switching insurance providers if no contribution was made.
Bukhman also said Rosenshein verbally attacked him while doing a presentation on insurance plans to CSU a few days later. Bukham claimed Kashfi, once installed, had been hostile towards ASEQ and leaked confidential documents to competitors.
The university has not been involved.
“The CSU is an entity completely independent of the university and this precludes the university taking any action in this matter, be it trusteeship or otherwise,” Christine Mota, director of media relations at Concordia University, told The Varsity in an email.
The Concordian received a copy of Bukhman’s letter but was told not to print any of it.
“Our client considers its content to be extremely defamatory,” wrote Francis P. Donovan, a lawyer representing the Canadian Federation of Students-Quebec, in an email. “To do so would be to render yourselves complicit in acts of defamation, and you may be held liable for any and all damages resulting therefrom.”
With files from André Bovee Begun
