Below is the announcement that each and every student received about the Chicago Initiative. We are delighted that the University has been able to achieve its fundraising goals, indeed as he says it is "a historic achievement"
Our question at SOSHI is are any of these funds going to be directed at finding a solution for the graduate student health care cost crisis?
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It is my happy duty to announce that we have now crossed the $1 billion mark in our $2 billion fundraising campaign, the Chicago Initiative. This is an historic achievement for Chicago that represents the work of many, many hands, including our colleagues in development and alumni relations around campus, trustees,
alumni, current students, deans and faculty. Achieving the $1 billion mark is notable not only as a milestone, but also because philanthropy is so crucially important to fulfilling the mission of our great University. There is physical evidence of that philanthropy all around us, in the new Max Palevsky dormitories,
the Ratner Athletic Center, the new GSB campus, the Interdivisional Research Building and the Comer Children's Hospital. Equally important, philanthropy enables us to strengthen our investment in people -- in superb undergraduate
and graduate students as well as in the world -- class faculty that make Chicago the extraordinary university it is--and in programs to address the human and social needs in the community beyond the University. We're already hard at work on the second billion dollars, but I want to extend congratulations to all who have worked so hard on the first billion and express my warm gratitude to all of you who have made financial contributions in the course of the Initiative.
Don M. Randel
President
This information was just sent to SOSHI today about MIT's effort to address the crisis of health insurance rates among grad students. MIT's administration is light years away from the administrative state at University of Chicago where the problem has yet to be acknowledged.
Health Insurance Subsidy for Graduate Students
In what will surely elicit a great sigh of relief from many graduate
students, Provost Robert A. Brown announced today that health insurance
will be fully subsidized for graduate students supported by research and
teaching assistantships (RA's and TA's). With this subsidy, most graduate
students will see an approximately 8% increase in their disposable income
This comes as welcome news to the Graduate Student Council (GSC), which
has been working with administrators since June 2003 to find a solution that addresses the rising cost of health care and other expenses. The
culmination of these efforts took the form of a presentation to the Dean's
Group of the Academic Council earlier this month. Keeping in mind that
the brunt of the cost would be absorbed by the Faculty, the GSC
recommended a subsidy for health insurance coupled with a small increase
in stipend as the most effective way to meet graduate student needs.
While the Institute recommended stipend level will remain the same next
year, departments will have the option of varying stipends within a -10%
and +15% window for their students. This flexibility allows for increases
in stipends at the departmental level. This may be of help to students
with families, who will benefit from the $1440 increase in income, but who
also have additional expenses. The GSC and administration recognize that
this segment of our population unique challenges. The GSC will continue
to investigate ways to further address these concerns.
While the health insurance subsidy in isolation is a tremendous step in
the right direction, it is just one component of a larger effort to
address the overall graCost of Living Issues" in the Graduate Student News,
MIT Cost of Living
for more about the GSC COLAB).
duate student cost of living issue. The GSC Cost
of Living Advisory Board (GSC COLAB), a group composed of administrators
and the GSC, has been working this year to take a look at all of the
expenses that graduate students experience
Hi,
I'm a student representative to SHIRC and have also signed the SOSHI petition. I'd like to answer a couple of questions that are asked here. The meeting minutes are not made public because there are privacy issues, not with respect to letting students have access to the information, but with respect to the relationship between the University and the health insurance provider. Making them public to the student body would might also allow unwanted access from other parties. This doesn't mean that SHIRC can't release more information on what it does. I will raise this issue at the next meeting. Secondly, there is no formal process for selecting srudents to participate on SHIRC. This is something that SHIRC recognizes as a problem and plans to do something about. However, being selected to participate on SHIRC is not difficult. There are not many students who express interest in participating, so if you go to your Dean and do so, you are likely to be contacted. Finally, because there is no formal selection process for student participation on SHIRC, there are also no formal term limits.
Anyone who is monitoring this website and would like to talk further about these issues, please contact me at aih@uchicago.edu.
Thanks
Anne
The response to our petition has been overwhelmingly positive with nearly 800 signatures this represents over 10% of the entire graduate student body here and almost 30% of the social science, div, and humanities PhD students.
We will be soon sending this petition to President Randel. Vice-President Klass, the provost, and board of trustees. Your signatures are making the difference, so please sign your name if you have yet to do so, add yourself to the general announcement mailing list, and spread the word.
SHIRC is holding a series of meetings in early March to announce next year's plans. They did not want to realse the information before the meetings but thanks to student protest, they will be. We urge folks to check thier announcement page for updates, read the proposed plan, and *go* with your thoughts and concerns to the meetings. We already know that the plan is expected to rise between 12_15% next year and recall that it went up already 20% this last year. Is this something we can afford?
Please attend the meetings and let your voice be heard!
March 2 at 3 pm
March 4 at noon
March 5 at 5 pm
All meetings will be in the Reynolds Club South Lounge and are open to all students.
I have always chosen the comprehensive level of insurance in order to assure
that should an unexpected medical emergency arise, I would have enough funds to cover the cost.
Please excuse the personal level of this disclosure, but I think it necessary to
share because the costs of health care are so exhorbitant at the University of
Chicago.
I had a routine follow-up to an irregular pap smear. The cost of a visit to a
gynecologist for a coloscopy was $2,500. My spouse also had to have a chest
x-ray within the same month. Including the deductible, I was left with almost
700 in bills for very rudimentary procedures (10 min. each). As a writing
intern, I make $1,900 per quarter. $700 constitutes an enormous expense.
My lab work came back normal. I do not know what I would do if I ever broke a
leg or had a medical condition that required more intensive care. I find this
disheartening because the reason why we are required to carry insurance is to
make sure that we will not have to disrupt our studies because of medical
expenses. I can foresee circumstances in which that might be the case even
though I have the highest level of insurance.
The University must recognize this as a problem. Students with limited funding
work many hours for low wages. It is unfair when a large percentage of those
wages are returned to the hospital for care. The wages the university pays are
not adequate to pay for expenses incurred for more serious medical conditions
even when you consider the maximum annual out-of-pocket expense. We simply do not have the financial means to invest even $1,000 a year in medical care.
In your petition, you write of the health coverage students in the BSD and PSD enjoy. In general, this is true, but there is a glaring exception. Students with dependents pay far above market rate (close to 200% of market rate) to insure them under the student plan (and even so, the "Basic" plan, which does not cover well-baby visits, is the only option). Of course, many students have the option of having their children covered under a spouse's employer's insurance, but some do not. At one point, I was paying 1/4 of my stipend, or more than $5000/year, on dependent health insurance PREMIUMS (not including copays or uncovered procedures).
Needless to say, my dependents are now covered on a Blue Cross PPO. If the university doesn't believe that education is only for unmarried people without children, they should provide a dependent insurance option that does not spell financial ruin for their students.
UCHP participants have no midwifery option
The new chair of Obstetrics, Arthur Haney, has abolished the Nurse-Midwives' program, which provided excellent, personal care to healthy childbearing women. In addition, a small group of obstetricians ("extended" by obstetric residents) will now deliver all of the babies born at U of C Hospitals. This spells a complete end to continuity of care: it is now impossible for the average woman to deliver her baby at U of C with a practitioner she has seen for prenatal care.
Given substantial scientific evidence that stress plays a role in determining the outcome of labor, providing a caregiver with whom a woman can be comfortable should be a medical priority. In addition, this "assembly line" approach to childbirth undermines birth as a family event.
Under the current conditions, the U of C cannot be considered an acceptable place to give birth. Deliver your baby at a hospital (such as Northwestern) that honors women's autonomy in reproductive healthcare, and write to Dr. Haney (ahaney@babies.bsd.uchicago.edu) and to Hospital President Michael Riordan (mriordan@uchospitals.edu) to tell them you are doing so.
Those covered under UCHP should petition for out-of-network converage for midwifery care since no comparable care is offered at U of C.
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