Insurance premiums to rise for Penn student plan

Brand prescriptions, trips to the doctor's office and outpatient mental health may carry a heftier price tag next year for students who subscribe to the University's Student Insurance Plan, if proposed changes are implemented.

Several recommendations advocating slight price increases to the Penn Student Insurance Plan for the 2005-06 academic year were sent to University President Amy Gutmann yesterday for approval.

If adopted, the plan proposed by the Student Health Insurance Advisory Committee will result in a 6.3 percent increase in the student premium -- the first increase of less than 10 percent in five years.

The Graduate and Professional Student Assembly will sponsor a forum tonight to allow the nearly 8,000 students -- mostly graduate and professional -- who subscribe to PSIP to ask questions about the proposed plan, which would also result in these changes:

n The annual deductible will increase by $20.

n The co-pay for high-cost procedures (such as CAT scans and MRIs) will increase from $20 to $50.

n The co-pay for outpatient mental health, brand-name prescriptions and physician office visits (not including visits to the Student Health Service) will increase from $20 to $25.

While Acting Chair of SHIAC and Associate Dean of Arts and Letters in the School of Arts and Sciences Joseph Farrell noted that the forum can produce student suggestions to the proposed plan, "It is mainly for students to understand the plan and for us to have a chance to explain it," he said.

"We want them to know what's coming," Farrell added.

GAPSA Vice Chairman for Policy and SHIAC member Kevin Jude said the forum may help prevent future difficulties with PSIP that some students encounter.

"We find that people don't think about health insurance until they have to use it, and that's when problems come up," the third-year Chemistry graduate student said.

"We feel that by bringing some attention to the issue ... there will be better information among the general student population and people can avoid some of the problems that can befall them," Jude said.

GAPSA also hosts a forum in the fall, at which students are more likely to voice concern about the previous year's plan.

Throughout the year, SHIAC gathers student opinion and consults frequently with PSIP's provider, the Chickering Group, underwritten by Aetna.

One continual gripe of students is that PSIP is too expensive. But Associate Vice Provost for University Life and SHIAC member Max King noted that this year's increase is relatively small.

While the over-6 percent premium increase may appear high, it is actually well below the national average increase of 10-15 percent.

Jude said that this anomaly can be attributed to the fact that insurance rates are stabilizing.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.