New insurance plan raises costs, benefits

The Student Health Insurance Advisory Committee announced last night that the 2002-2003 Penn Student Insurance Plan will raise premiums but, unlike this year's plan, will also raise health benefits.

The new plan raises the student premium from $1,350 to $1,677. Students with one dependent will now pay $4,027, up from this year's $3,200, and students with more than one dependent will pay $6,743 instead of $5,362.

At the same time, however, the annual deductible -- or the charge that must be paid by a person before benefits are payable -- was reduced from $250 to $100. Out-of-pocket expenses for patients with preferred care providers also decreased from $2,500 to $1,500.

Controversy erupted in the summer over this year's insurance plan, which offers three different options for premiums and raised the price of one of the three packages while simultaneously decreasing the benefits.

"The more dramatic changes were last year, where the outcome was summarily a higher premium for a less attractive plan," said Deputy Provost Peter Conn, the committee chairman. "Now we have at least [an] increase in premium and some increase in benefits -- or at least you have both of those numbers moving in the same direction, which is a relief to all of us. What I would like to see is even more stability in the future."

SHIAC -- a 25-member committee composed of administrators, graduate and undergraduate school representatives -- analyzed this year's plan, listened to student feedback and deliberated for months to arrive at what Conn called "the best place we could be under difficult circumstances."

"The amount of work that's involved in this is fairly daunting," Conn added. "The questions are important, but also complex. The amount of information needed is significant. We knew that we were not going to be in a position to meet everybody's aspirations with respect to a health plan."

According to committee members, the student premium is increasing by $327 due in part to a nationwide trend of rising health care insurance costs. National costs for this year are estimated to increase by at least 15 percent. Consequently, students under single coverage would have had to pay a premium of at least $200 more next year to maintain the same benefits from this year's plan.

"There will be people who will resent that they have to pay more," Associate Dean of Graduate Studies Joseph Farrell said. "But what's pretty much the case is, the more people use the plan, the more they'll be in favor of it. It's a pretty good plan. We had a pretty good plan last year, and this just improves it."

While all full-time Penn students are required to have insurance, those who rely on a health care plan provided through the University are mostly graduate and professional students.

Some graduate student leaders were especially concerned about the coverage for students with dependents.

"In terms of the new plan's premiums, obviously it's going to mean a fair amount of hardship for a number of graduate students who have dependents," Coordinator of Graduate Parents at Penn Ed Webb said. "The premium for students plus two or more dependents is close to 50 percent of the stipend that fully-funded graduate students in the arts and sciences will be getting."

However, Webb said he is glad that benefits have increased and said the new plan is "quite an improvement on the Mickey Mouse plan we had this year."

"Given national circumstances, this is a good compromise," he said. "It could have been better, it could have been worse."

SHIAC, established in the mid-1990s, reviews the health insurance plan every year to see if improvements can be made, and members said this year's deliberations were routine in that sense.

"It's common to look at a plan and say what things will be continued, left unchanged and whether there need to be changes," said Evelyn Wiener, director of Student Health Services. "Frequently, what happens is to try and make adjustments to improve benefits if you can, to shift costs if you can. That's pretty common, and virtually every year there are some adjustments."

The University solicited bids from three health insurance providers: Mega Life and Health Insurance, Keystone-Independence Blue Cross and Chickering/Aetna, which has been Penn's insurance carrier for the past three years and will remain the provider for next year's plan.

Committee members said that decisions made about the plan were not influenced by the attempt of some graduate students to unionize. Graduate Employees Together-University of Pennsylvania recently wrapped up preliminary hearings with the University in front of a National Labor Relations Board moderator over the rights of some Penn graduate students to hold union elections.

But GET-UP officials are convinced that the debate over unionization did influence the committee's decision.

"I'm certain that the issue of unionization has affected the way that Peter Conn, for instance, sees things," said GET-UP co-spokeswoman Joanie Mazelis, a fourth-year sociology graduate student. "Because we're upset, the administration is worried that we'll unionize. They see it in their interest to make certain concessions."

Mazelis added that while the University has made certain improvements to the plan, this does not mean GET-UP will stop its campaign to unionize.

"I think that a legally recognized union will get an even better insurance plan," she said.

Although GET-UP does not represent all graduate students, Graduate Student Associations Committee President Darren Glass said he believes the new plan appeals to a broader range of students.

"Some of the issues that motivate some students to think that a union would be good are connected to health insurance coverage," Glass said. "The reality, though, is that SHIAC is trying to make a decision for a large pool of people while unionization affects on the order of 1,000 of those people."

Glass said he has been impressed with SHIAC's efforts to solicit student feedback. Members of the committee attended some of GSAC's meetings to learn more about concerns regarding this year's plan.

"SHIAC has done a very good job of listening to people's concerns and trying to adjust to them," Glass said. "It's always a good thing when graduate students are willing to voice their complaints and those complaints are listened to."

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