Graduate Student Senate President Dominic Barbato congratulated the senate on its successful lobbying to secure health care subsidies for graduate assistants at last night's meeting.
Administrators approved the $110,000 subsidy and added it to the first year of the Five Year Vision Ohio Implementation Plan, Barbato said. The subsidy will cover roughly 10 percent of health care costs.
The deans and provost struck a deal that would convert some of the money going to recruitment and the undergraduate research fund into one-time money
Barbato wrote in an e-mail to the senate. The dollars saved from that are going to fund our subsidy.
Barbato estimated each full-time graduate assistant will receive $100 per year. Barbato said he is not sure how much money part-time graduate assistants will get because the $110,000 is less than the $139,500 the senate suggested in February. Senators agreed this amount was more realistic than the Fall Quarter proposal of about $750,000.
Senators were encouraged to talk to their college's dean about supporting the subsidy after the senate submitted its recommendation.
The senate threatened to revoke its support of the $40 optional health fee to improve Student Health Services if the health insurance subsidy had not been approved. The senate endorsed the fee last quarter on the condition that the money be used solely for improvements to health services.
The senate also discussed a resolution outlining different student health insurance plan options that the senate may choose to endorse. For the past three years, the senate has been involved with renegotiating the student health care policy.
Different options include no change in plan coverage on top of a 10 percent premium increase, or increasing outpatient prescription drug coverage and catastrophic illness coverage by varied dollar amounts per year.
The senate decided to postpone voting on the resolution until the next senate meeting with hopes of having better statistics on which to base its decision. 17
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Joellen Kralik
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