Letters

Dental Insurance Plan for Retirees?

Dr. Seldin,

I agree with your proposal in the May/June Faculty Newsletter [“A Modest Proposal: A Dental Insurance Plan for All Students”] that the Institute needs to find some way to provide dental insurance for students. Your arguments are compelling.

However, I would like to call your attention to a minor error in the discussion: in two places you say "...students comprise the only sub-set of our population that goes without the benefit of a dental insurance offering." There is a second important subset of the MIT population that does not have the benefit of a dental insurance offering: retirees. (This is a subset of the MIT community that you will probably join one day.)

I find this omission similarly puzzling, especially since there appears to be a low-cost way for MIT to provide at least some coverage for retirees: simply make Delta Dental plan coverage available to retirees at cost. Because Delta Dental negotiates favorable prices with many dentists, those favorable prices would significantly lower the overall cost of dental care for retirees without requiring that MIT contribute any funds other than the cost of administration. MIT already provides retirees with up to 18 months of dental coverage at cost under COBRA, and it would seem straightforward to arrange for that coverage to continue indefinitely.

Jerry Saltzer

Dr. Seldin Responds:

Thank you so much for pointing out the embarrassing omission of retirees in my campaign of advocacy on behalf of students. Your point is well taken and your proposed solution seems entirely reasonable to me.

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