UMass covers between 90 and 95 percent of insurance costs for the graduate employee organization as part of their contract.
AMHERST – Some University of Massachusetts students are upset by the change in the health plan at UMass that will require out-of-pocket costs for visits to specialists and certain procedures.
Ryan Quinn, a representative of the Graduate Employee Organization UAW Local, said those that would be most affected are women expecting babies after Aug. 1, when the change would take place.
Currently, the health care plan covers the full cost of visits to specialists on the preferred list, the new policy reduces that to 85 percent of the cost and that is with a $250 deductible, up from $200.
Quinn said women having babies could be responsible for delivery costs of up to $5,000 – the cap on out of pocket costs and about a third of what graduate student employees earn.
UMass spokesman Daniel Fitzgibbons said the university “wanted to keep premiums affordable.” He said about 3,000 undergraduates are insured and only about 500 graduate students who are not part of the union.
If UMass had retained its 100 percent coverage, premiums would have needed to have been hiked between 29.3 to 57.3 percent, according to a letter to graduate student employee from Donna J. Yezierski, associate director of University Health Services. This rate of increase is based on three proposals offered by health provider insurers.
“Such increases would have had a significant negative impact on all – undergraduates and non-union graduate students, who are responsible for the full cost of their insurance,” she wrote.
UMass covers between 90 and 95 percent of insurance costs for the graduate employee organization as part of their contract.
But Quinn said that “most would rather pay that additional premium.” He said that is based on calls to the union as well as an informal survey of members.
He said with the new plan “we’re moving toward an almost catastrophic (health-care) coverage.”
Under the change, premiums are rising 17 percent instead of the nearly 30 percent they would have otherwise. For the year, individuals will pay $2,776 up from $2,371. A family plan is rising from $6,288 to $7,374. Plus students have to pay a mandatory $654 health fee.
But most graduate students are members of the union and pay just 5 percent of the costs and will see a hike from $118.55 to $138.80. “That’s pretty good coverage,” Fitzgibbons said.
Quinn said that even if a procedure is done on campus such as a gynecological exam from a specialist who comes to the campus, students have to pay 15 percent of the cost of that as well. This includes unionized graduate students.
The union is staging three rallies Friday and is being joined by members of Mass-Care (the Massachusetts Campaign for SinglePayer Health Care), Jobs with Justice, Public Higher Education Network of Massachusetts’s (PHENOM,) and the Student Labor Action Project.
At noon, they will be handing out leaflets at the Aetna Student Health Corporate Headquarters in Cambridge. Aetna is the campus insurer.
Also at noon, people will be at the corner of Amity and South Pleasant streets in Amherst and at 4 p.m. at Main and Pleasant streets in Northampton.
Quinn said this change has implications beyond the campus here and at UMass-Dartmouth, which is also facing coverage changes.
He and others believe that this type of proposal “is going to be a model for cost containment in this state.”