Graduate Student Senate's meeting tonight will feature a presentation about a health care plan for graduate students that could end up costing them about 13 percent more in premiums.
Dean of Students Ryan Lombardi will present the senate with figures he has been collecting about the university's bid to have a one-year extension of its current student health care coverage with UnitedHealthcare StudentResources.
The new coverage will increase the rate of premiums to 13.25 percent.
That is a pretty significant increase
Lombardi said. ... My understanding from talking to a few professionals in the medical industry is that health insurance premiums are going up pretty steadily ... I've heard that anywhere from 10 to 20 percent is normal.
The circumstances for this year's negotiations are different than those of previous years, as the university is only looking for a one-year extension from the same health care company.
Under normal circumstances we would do a bid for a three or five multiyear bid for an insurance company but we have only asked for a one-year extension because the IUC
the Inter-University Council
is currently exploring maybe a statewide bid that maybe all state schools in Ohio would buy into
Lombardi said.
The presentation will feature four different options for graduate students to look over and discuss that are different from the initial 13.25 percent increase.
I am going to present four options that they could adjust the coverage by
Lombardi said. I have the corresponding savings that would equate with that.
OU is already behind in the health care plan this year because of negotiations on the one-year extension, Lombardi said.
We like to have this settled in late April or early May
but we were going back and forth to bring the rates down
he said. The initial quote was 16 percent ... so we were able to negotiate to bring it down a little bit lower.
Tonight's meeting will follow up on previous discussions about health care with the senate.
In the fall
Dean Lombardi came and spoke to us and received our input and our concerns about graduate student health care
said Tracy Kelly, president of Graduate Student Senate. (He was going to) look into where the university is heading with negotiations ... and then report back to us and let us know what our options would be with regards to graduate student health care and our concerns that we expressed.
