Insurance rates to rise by 21.9%

The Graduate and Professional Student Council focused on health insurance issues, student happiness and campus safety in its meeting Monday night.

Returning to issues covered in the last meeting, Rob Saunders, community affairs coordinator for GPSC, reported that Blue Cross/Blue Shield of North Carolina, the provider of Duke’s student health insurance, will hike the cost of next year’s plan 21.4 percent to a record $1,589. Duke student health insurance increased almost 21.9 percent last year to $1,310 per student. Insurance rates have risen 14 percent annually on average due to the rising cost of healthcare.

Saunders, who did his own research on health insurance rates, mentioned there may be ways of reducing the cost to students. GPSC could seek other insurance providers that offer lower premiums, cut current benefits to keep premiums down or alter the level of family costs to lift much of the payment burden off individual students.

He also said the rates were not highly overpriced compared to other schools considering Duke graduate and professional students visit the emergency room 23 percent more on average than graduate students at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University. Duke students also receive on average 3.3 prescriptions per year, while students at these comparable universities average only 2.3.

Saunders noted that in past years when GPSC has looked to find other insurance providers, Blue Cross/Blue Shield has consistently proposed the lowest premiums. He added that Duke subsidizes its plan considerably compared to an individual plan with this same provider.

GPSC also reviewed a recent Graduate and Professional Student Survey that 2,313 graduate students, about 40 percent of the graduate student body, answered. Troy Powell, a graduate student in sociology, spoke about the results and how the survey defined student satisfaction. He noted that, on average, students in the natural sciences and engineering were less satisfied with their programs than students in the nursing and divinity schools. Results were based on how highly students would recommend their programs to others, whether they would choose their programs again given the chance, student-faculty relationships and other categories rated on a scale of one to five.

Leanora Minai, senior public relations specialist for Duke University Police Department, and Eric Van Danen, director of communications for the Office of Student Affairs, discussed campus safety. Both have been working for Duke for approximately four months and have spent their time building student relationships and trying to increase student communication with DUPD and the administration.

“I want to better communicate issues and developments with students and act as a spokesperson,” Minai said. She has begun work on a new police department newsletter, the first of which will be published in April. Minai said she wants to inform graduate and professional students about significant crime by notifying them of incidents that pose a significant threat to the Duke community through this newsletter as well as a policenews listserv.