I'm sorry if I repeat what everybody already said here.
But, I have to say this because I have the bill in my hand now.
I'm a Ph.D. student, and I have my wife and my 2-year-old baby under my coverage.
How much do I pay for the insurance per quarter?
$2520 per quarter! $552 for myself, and $984 each for them!
It's $7560 per year!!! and it's been increased and increased!!!
DOES THIS MAKE SENSE? $7560 for insurance from poor grad students???
I am a "survivor" of the UC approach to graduate student health insurance,
I spent 8 years in Chicago as doctoral students at SSA (with a dependent child for the last 2).
I want mainly to laud your organizing efforts -- and can only hope that
many students show up at this meeting. I also wanted to add the additional
info not reflected in your data summary (but which you may already have)
that SSA students as part of their initial 4-year stipend do get basic
health insurance and health fee cost "waivers," and thereafter can obtain
"waivers" for basic-only insurance (when they otherwise wouldn't get any
coverage from the school) by TAing or RAing. Something that's long felt
particularly gross to SSA students and probably those elsewhere, too, is
that there are numerous cases when a doctoral student obtains multiple
waivers for the same time period that go financially
unrecognized/unreimbursed by the school. To try to illustrate, one year I
got an SSA dissertation grant that covered (basic) health insurance & fees
all year, and then TA'd for two quarters, work which separately earns me
coverage -- so the school had to pay for only one waiver for me across the
year even though for each of 2 terms I'd technically earned 2 (for those 2
doubled-up quarters). But in these circumstances, even though they're
saving lots of money (by having a grantee also serve as teaching assistant),
the school won't at least bump the student to comprehensive coverage --
something they'd still save money doing. The point of all of this excessive
detail is that in describing their offering of basic insurance coverage to
us, they say it's "real money"; but when we push them to refund us some of
that money, or else improve our benefits, when we double-up our waivers
through double-duty, it's "not real money.
Best of Luck!
have high cholesterol that is supposed to be monitored every three months. Since coming to the University of Chicago, I have gotten it tested once because the test costs $125 and I can only really afford to pay that kind of money once a year. I have been estimating my progress since last January. The U fo C coverage's ineptness shocks me. Before coming here, I was at Harvard, where I was provided with all the health care I needed and paid less than I do now. I paid one doctor's bill in three years, and I got all kinds of procedures done, including moles removed, cavities filled and travel vaccinations. And my birth control pill copay was $10! And to think I complained about how difficult it was to see a doctor! I think I'd settle for long lines and no bills. When is the University going to begin to treat its grad students like adults who work for a living?
Like many others, I strongly support serious and substantial changes to the University's current health insurance coverage and payment options. I ended up coming to Chicago for my graduate work, despite the hefty (and growing) insurance fee, but it was certainly something I thought about before making my decision, and I would encourage incoming students to do the same. The fact that the coverage keeps getting simultaneously more expensive and less adequate is shocking, particularly in a university that prides itself on its ability to attract top-notch students. I came because the Anthro Dept here is rigorous and deservedly held in high esteem. Questions of funding and fees (insurance in particular) have emerged, however, as ever more salient drawbacks to the program, and I wonder what level of committment this indicates from the administration - particularly given that the geo/bio/chem sciences do provide health coverage to their students.
It's not that I regret my decision to come here, but I do find that the cost of insurance takes a large and painful chunk out of my meager (albeit gratefully received) stipend. I would also counsel prospective student to think carefully about the costs of a program like this, and to weigh thoughtfully what all their options might be. There a lot of great faculty out there; Chicago has a large number of them, but certainly not a monopoly. The many-year-long process that is a PhD here means making life decisions, and those must necessarily include more than just academic concerns and possibilities.
I was accepted to several graduate programs in 2002, ALL of which included health insurance in their financial award/aid package--except for U of C. This factor made me hesitate to come here, although I eventually decided it was the best place for me, academically/professionally. I also did some research before I came, and saw that although I had to pay, the U of C insurance coverage seemed decent. Then, I arrived last fall, and they had cut the benefit by 95%, without surveying students. I went to the fall 2002 meeting to address this, and that's where I learned about the "two-tiered" systems of natural science students receiving funding while social science and humanities students did not. A few natural science students felt they had even more reason to complain *because* insurance is included in their package--and thus, they have to take whatever the university gives them. So, they were more concerned about the details, while many of us non-automatically-insured folks were simply stunned that we had to pay out of out stipends.
I looked into other private insurance plans, which have much better benefits, but are still more expensive, ESPECIALLY for women of child-bearing age--note this is also a gendered issue. Women may get slightly cheaper car insurance but men pay significantly less for health insurance--and this is even excluding *separate* maternity coverage. This year, I am paying over $100 more out of pocket for a minimal plan (the basic). I have a regular prescription that is quite expensive, even the generic. It will *just* undercut the $1000 Rx yearly limit, thankfully, but I still have to pay 10% more co-pay than if I had the "advantage" plan, because it works out to slightly less than if i paid the advantage premiums.
Bottom line--fellow grad students at other competitive schools think this is ridiculous, as do I. I also did not receive information on dental insurance this year, and thus missed the deadline for the student rate. When I went to talk to the health insurance staff in their office, they did not take responsibility for being disorganized and uninformative, and did not help me by offering any alternatives. I felt generally ignored, as though I were bothering them.
A Maroon article describes what monies collected from a massive fundraising campaign will go towards:
"the Chicago Initiative, an ambitious fundraising campaign that seeks to raise $2 billion within a five-year period. At the moment the campaign has raised slightly under $1 billion, and the funds are being channeled toward the university’s endowment, financial aid budget, faculty recruitment, research programs, and construction of new facilities."
Why is none of this money allocated for health care? Are we really so much about the "Life of the Mind" that the "Life of the Body" has no value in this community?
Fortunately, I am no longer on the University Health Insurance Plan,
but I have many horror stories from my time on that plan. First of
all, I don't believe that students should have to pay huge deductibles
and to risk losing their insurance should they become sick and have
to withdraw from school. That is absolutely insane and it puts
students in an incredibly precarious situation in which they are
paying for a service they would, in all likelihood, not even be able
to use should they become seriously ill. I hope this has changed.
Furthermore, my deductible and co-payments were so high when I was on
the University plan that I +found it difficult to get by, even though
I was fortunate enough to have only minor ailments. +In addition, the
service was absolutely terrible, considering the amount of money I
paid. I remember waiting weeks to get an appointment, and then
waiting hours even after I showed up at +the appointed time. I feel
fortunate in that I am now using my husband's health insurance plan,
which is much better and cheaper than the UChicago one, but I
sympathize with those students who do not have a +spouse or partner to
lean upon. They shouldn't be punished just because they are single or
happened to marry to another graduate student. It's abominable. ~
I wrote the following message to the Student Health Insurance Review
Committee (SHIRC) last February when they solicited comments:
In an environment of increasing health care costs, the university should be aware that the University's health coverage patterns increasingly contribute to how prospective graduate students will weigh the cost of graduate education. For example, I myself weighed Chicago against other top universities where I would have receivedchealth insurance free-of-charge due to the quasi-employee status of graduate students there. The uncertain cost and quality of the SASI was the most serious point against Chicago in my decision. Given current trends in health care costs, the university should recognize that graduate student health plans - and not just employee plans may increasingly affect the university's ability to compete with other institutions.
In addition, increases in prescription brand-name co-pays would dramatically increase my own monthly cost of living, because they would be multiplied by several times. The downside of excellent new medications for chronic conditions (e.g., asthma) is that they are available only under brand names.
I have found it difficult to obtain information by telephone from the on-campus representative of Aetna/Chickering. For example, last fall, numerous phone calls were not returned and this caused significant difficulty and concern for me.