Graduate and Professional Student Council members vented frustrations about their health insurance plan at Monday night's meeting. Representatives were concerned about several issues, including the costs of care for students' families and the lack of coverage for dental, eye and other preventative services.
Bill Christmas, director of Student Health, and Dax Hill, of insurance consultant Hill, Chesson and Woody, spoke to GPSC about those students' health care plans and took suggestions on how to improve the plan. Hill's firm has worked to provide health insurance to the University through Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina since 1979.
Heisler said her constituents expressed concern about health insurance issues prior to Monday's meeting. "GPSC is the main forum that looks over health insurance for graduate students," GPSC President Elayne Heisler said. "A lot of big changes took place last year that were in our best interest and we hope to continue that."
About 75 percent of the 4,300 Duke students who participate in the University sponsored insurance plan are graduate or professional students.
Because of a decrease in claims costs last year, the price per student for medical insurance coverage decreased from $847 to $814. Students can cover their family for an additional $1,747 per year--whether the family is comprised of only another spouse or with five children as well.
Christmas attributed the high cost to obstetrics expenses. Heisler said the Student Health Insurance Advisory Committee argued that someone with only a spouse had more employment opportunity and therefore could bear that expense.
"This is a subsidy graduate and professional students provide to help a small group of folks [with larger families] out and make it more affordable to them," Christmas said.
GPSC members also asked the speakers why preventative services, particularly dental and eye care, are not covered. Currently, the health plan offers no preventative services except for mammograms, pap smears, prostrate exams and check-ups for children under two years of age.
Christmas said it is financially infeasible to offer those options to students because of the effects of adverse selection. Graduate and professional students who are in school for several years often choose only to pay for one year of such services to have all their elective surgeries during that year, Christmas said.
He added that the only financially feasible way to include dental and eye care to the plan would be to require all students to purchase such coverage. Christmas said this does not seem to be a better option for most students, as it would cost less to get an eye or dental exam than pay for the entire plan.
GPSC representatives also asked why the health plan could not automatically cover prescriptions, rather than making students file for reimbursement. Hill said the advisory committee rejected the adoption of a drug card that would cost $27 a year specifically for that purpose.
To facilitate reimbursement, Hill recommended students enroll early. Currently the deadline to enroll is not until mid-October, when students are enrolled by default. Students who wait for this do not get reimbursed before enrollment.
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