Although controversy erupted over this past year's Penn Student Insurance Plan -- which reduced benefits while raising premiums -- the reaction has been more positive on the proposed plan for the 2002-2003 school year.
The Student Health Insurance Advisory Committee, consisting of 25 undergraduates, graduate students and administrative and health officials, released the insurance plan for the next school year on Monday. The plan includes significantly increased premiums, but reduced annual deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses for patients with preferred care providers.
Wharton MBA and three-year SHIAC member Matthew Bayley attributes last year's dissatisfaction to the fact that students had become used to the same premium cost as a result of the lack of price increases. Now, the students "have more reliable expectations and understand that insurance will go up every year," Bayley said.
Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania has emphasized the importance of the insurance plan throughout their campaign for unionization, which is currently awaiting a decision from the National Labor Relations Board on whether or not Penn graduate students will have the right to hold union elections.
Despite the ongoing hearings during the committee's discussions, Bayley maintains that the debate over unionization did not impact the committee's decisions with regard to health benefits.
"SHIAC continued to use the exact same process as we used last year," Bayley added. "The breadth of members representing different places was pretty much the same. The change indicates a clearer understanding of the health care industry."
However, GET-UP co-spokesman Shane Duarte said that "there is no doubt in my mind that pressure from GET-UP led to the improvements."
"This has a lot to do with GET-UP. It is something that we've been pushing for and still push for since the summer," he said.
Though many believe the new plan is more reasonable in many areas, there is still much concern over the effects of the plan on students with dependents, according to Duarte.
"GET-UP acknowledges that the plan is an improvement over last year's health plan," Duarte said. "But it doesn't do much for people with dependents."
But Bayley said the higher cost of insurance for students with dependents, as compared to the cost for individual students, is a direct result of usage patterns among students and their dependents.
"Dependents, particularly in this plan, are the highest users, whereas students are the lowest users," Bayley said.
In addition, the new plan moved away from last year's dependence on co-insurance -- where the insurance company would only pay for a certain percentage of medical coverage -- to a co-pay system, in which the student pays a flat rate and the insurance company covers any costs that exceed the rate.
"By moving to that, graduate students know up front what their costs are and can better predict their expenses over the year, which is important," Bayley said. "But it is not necessarily an improvement -- it is more of a lateral move that is closer to their preference."
Shivan Mehta, a medical student, had a favorable reaction to the new health plan.
"I think [SHIAC] did a good job with all the issues that they had to deal with," Mehta said. "I think they got the best possible plan with the allotted amount of money that they wanted to spend."
Though Mehta was not on the health insurance plan last year, he said he plans to be on it for the upcoming academic year.
However, there were also a significant number of graduate students that had neither heard about the new plan nor knew what details were included. Many declined to comment because of their lack of knowledge about the new plan.
Incoming Graduate and Professional Students Assembly Chairman Jeremy Korst said he thinks the committee did the best job it could to keep costs down, considering the current economic situation.
"In all, I think graduate students are getting the best deal possible, given the unavoidable fact that health care costs are continuing to increase at an alarming rate," Korst said in an e-mail statement.
"The committee members should be commended for their diligence and dedication to the thankless task of tackling this difficult issue," Korst added.
