Graduate Student Senate is focusing on lowering health insurance costs for graduate and international graduate students this school year, President Kaelyn Ferris said.
This is coming off of growing concerns about raising premiums for health insurance for graduate students while stipends remain the same.
For the 2017-2018 year, the cost of health insurance provided by UnitedHealthcare was approximately $990 per semester after subsidies and is paid in four installments.
In the 2018-2019 academic year, insurance costs increased 29%, according to a previous Post report.
Costs were projected to go up by an additional 14% in late August, according to a previous Post report. Insurance premiums are currently $1,410, according to Ohio University’s website.
Executive board members like Vice President Amal Shimir are actively trying to improve other aspects of health insurance.
“We are in talks with the President of GSS and have talked with university officials,” Shimir said. “How to reduce health insurance fees for all grad students will be the issue of the semester.”
One possible solution is to change the payment plan of health insurance for students. The payment plan is split by four installments a semester, making it eight installments per academic school year.
Ferris' proposition was to have the payment plan spread throughout the summer so students would be able to plan their budget more accordingly throughout the school year instead of having larger payments during the semester.
When Ferris went to the Office of the Bursar to see if this was feasible, she was told the new payment couldn’t happen because of university policy.
“We’ve ran into many different hurdles,” Ferris said.
While looking into different solutions for health insurance costs, Ferris and other GSS members found that OU subsidizes only 10% of the total health insurance cost with the rest being covered out of pocket, according to GSS records. Their data also shows that peer institutions average between 70-80% subsidy of their graduate student health insurance.
Health insurance at OU also affects international graduate students. International graduate students are constrained to a maximum 20-hour work week by law, according to a previous Post report. Students like Shimir fear that if insurance rates increase, international graduate students won’t be able to pay for basic necessities like rent and health insurance. As Vice President, Shimir wants to increase stipends for all graduate students so this fear can be put to rest.
“I would like to see progress this year,” Ferris said. “Ultimately, this is going to be a long-term process. We need to be able to shape the coverage students need.”
Trying to make these propositions a reality will be different for Shimir this year, as GSS meetings will be happening through Teams due to COVID-19.
GSS has put together a committee for COVID-19 concerns, which is going to put out a survey for feedback from students about the phase planning OU has implemented for the Fall Semester.
“Our mission is to advocate for the grad student and general body,” Shimir said. “I want every grad student to know that we are here to support them. Despite their background, ethnicity, group statues, educational level. We need each other more than ever.”
