We have a detailed Excel chart with detailed information on health insurance provision for graduate students at other Universities
SOSHI met with Provost Saller, and Dean Janelle Mueller, Dean Mark Hansen, Dean Steven Klass, and Martina Munsters on April 2nd. Below is a letter SOSHI wrote in response to the meeting. It should provide a basic background on what transpired and our position.
We are still actively pursuing our goals and can always use more help. Our meetings are publicized on this website and if you would like to join the mailing list, please email sos@healthhacker. or sign up for the general announcement list here. We also have an organizational list for members who are actively working on SOSHI and any student can also join the list. Please come to our next meeting if you are interested in working more actively with SOSHI.
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Dear Provost Richard Saller, April 08, 2004
Thank you again for taking the time to meet and discuss the pressing issues surrounding health insurance provisions for graduate students at the University of Chicago. We write this letter to affirm once again our goals as an organization as well as to respond with more detail to the various opinions and positions advocated by the administration.
We were very pleased to hear that the various divisional deans have formed a working group to address this problem. We realize that some solutions can only be enacted after this type of discussion transpires, which might even yield some structural changes within and between divisions. We hope the information provided by SOSHI (such as the solutions found by other institutions despite incredible difficulties) can aid the working group in their own solution finding process.
However, we were disappointed that the administration chose to divert attention away from health care by speaking almost exclusively on stipends and stipend funding. SOSHI sees health care funding and stipend funding for graduate students as separate issues. While our basic position is that health care insurance cannot be realistically tackled without also addressing the question of funding, we would only hope and expect that the University would find a health insurance solution that addresses and aids all graduate students, not only those fortunate enough to hold stipends. We do not seek to create another two-tiered structure in this University, this time within the the Social Sciences Division, Humanities Division, and Divinity School between those with stipends and health insurance and those without either. As we stated in the meeting, the current existence of a two-tiered system for health insurance for students between the Physical and Biological Science Divisions on the one hand, and the Social Sciences Division, Humanities Division, and Divinity School is not acceptable.
We were also disappointed that the administration chose in its response to create a zero-sum condition for the health care solution: health care funding would lead to huge reductions in the number of entering students; or health care funding would lead to smaller stipends. In fact, though we advocate full coverage for all students, partial solutions are of course a healthy first step; such solutions should be thought of in more creative and balanced ways than all or nothing scenarios.
We were also left perplexed about the faculty position on this matter. We felt that responsibility for change in regards to health care funding was deflected by blaming a group not in the room: the faculty. We also feel that faculty position on department size and health care funding should not be treated as a given but as an empirical question—the answer to which is yet to be determined. Some of our own experiences with faculty have shown that some do in fact support some subsidy for health care insurance and perhaps accepting a smaller number of students. We have been informed that a few departments tried to suggest this to their divisional deans and were told that this arrangement was not possible. Clearly there are different opinions over this matter.
We would like to see a faculty survey that tackles this question and in a way that does not present the matter in a stark zero-sum scenario. While cutting a student cohort size, for example, from 25 to 10 students is certainly drastic, reducing it by 5 might be acceptable to faculty and be enough of a reduction to allow for insurance subsidies. We hope that a survey will be provided, one that realistically tracks the relationship between cohort size, funding capabilities, and faculty positions on these various configurations.
We were especially disappointed to be told directly that there would be no participation from students in reconstructing student health care. While While we realize that the University administration is not a democracy, nevertheless it seems only appropriate and wise to have sustained input and participation from the group of people, the students, who are most affected by these decisions.
We are frustrated that a very feasible long-term solution exists in our midst, an in-house clinic that operates separately from the University hospital, which we learned in this meeting is the most expensive hospital in Illinois. Though as Steven Klass has informed us, we are moving slowly to an in-house clinic by adding one or two types of staff physicians and practitioners per year, it is quite prudent to accelerate this process as much as possible. We see no reason to do otherwise and feel that we were not provided with a satisfactory explanation as to why this was not being pursued more aggressively, being that it is a realistic solution already underway.
We found it quite troubling that the University continues to obsess about peer institutions, to gather information on peer institutions, and to compare itself to peer institutions, until the point when students ask that certain changes be made, and then we are told that those changes are unrealistic because we are not like peer institutions (in terms of endowment size, funding structure, student population, etc.).
As students of SOSHI we are collectively prepared to follow through with our long-term education and publicity campaign within and outside of the University. This is an issue of great concern to most students as our petition has shown, and we feel that it is only responsible to inform incoming students of the financial vulnerability they put themselves in by coming here. With no guarantee of subsidies or health insurance, it is a significant risk, especially for Social Science, Humanities, and Divinity students who on average take nine years to complete their educations.
Again, we will continue to advocate for the short term and long term solutions that were presented at the meeting: heath insurance subsidies, a freeze on the rate increase for all plan members for the coming year, a committee to solve this pressing issue, and health insurance for all newly incoming students. We will also continue to press for a robust and comprehensive health care clinic so that we can detach from the hospital, which has so clearly been a source of this problem along with the immediate manifestations of the national health care crisis. We believe that our goals are reasonable and realizable given the proper willingness and effort.
And in the end, we hope that when it comes to something as fundamental, basic, and necessary as health insurance, the university will finally treat all PhD students as equally worthy, providing basic health insurance coverage to all graduate students.
With Respect,
Students of SOSHI
Robin Wagner, the Associate Dean of Students for Health Affairs informed
the area Deans of Students that the rates have gone up approximately 11%
this year and reflect the following key changes:
1. We removed the day surgery cap of $5000, which left some students with
large uncovered bills for necessary surgical procedures.
2. We lowered the out-of-network coverage to 50%
3. Non-surgical treatments for sex-reassignment therapy are now covered
4. All medical treatments outside the US will be covered at the in-network
level of care.
The rates for 04-05 are :
Basic Plan:
Student Only: $1,656, or $552 per quarter (3 payments)
Spouse Only: $2,952, or $984 per quarter (3 payments)
Child(ren): $2,952, or $984 per quarter (3 payments)
Advantage Plan:
Student Only: $2,460, or $820 per quarter (3 payments
Advantage Plan: