By MARTY LEVINE
The Student Health Insurance Task Force — created last year in response to graduate student objections to newly added deductibles and large increases in co-pays under the graduate students’ health plan — has ended without providing a hoped-for solution, one member reported to the Feb. 20 meeting of the University Senate’s Benefits and Welfare Committee.
State deadlines for such changes — which would necessitate re-separating the undergraduate and graduate health plans with approval of the Pennsylvania Insurance Department — passed without a compromise among task force members, according to history faculty member Laura Lovett, the committee’s representative on the panel. Task force members included representatives of graduate and undergraduate students as well as University faculty, staff and administrators.
“Maybe it will become a possibility later,” said committee chair Linda Tashbook, a librarian in the School of Law.
Melissa Kluchurosky, Human Resources’ benefits director and co-chair of the task force, said the administration is “committed to creating a (new) task force — to look into plans as we move into the future” and expects them to start meeting this fall. But in the meantime, it is “most likely” that the current health care changes will remain. “We are looking at some tweaks to co-payments,” she added.
The task force’s other co-chair, Carla Panzella, interim vice provost for student affairs and dean of students, did not respond by press time to an inquiry concerning the task force’s main sticking points and the University’s future plans.
Announced in an email last Aug. 17 from the provost’s office, the health plan changes merged the graduate student health insurance plan with the general student health insurance plan “to alleviate confusion and align Pitt with the offerings of its institutional peers,” the statement read.
The changes included $250 individual and $500 family deductibles where none had before been in place, as well as appointment co-pays that went up 600 percent for primary care and mental health visits and 400 percent for specialists and urgent care visits. Inpatient hospital stays, previously covered fully, are now covered at only 90 percent after a $250 copay under the new plan.
In the aftermath of objections, including a petition from graduate students already in process of trying to form a union, the University created a medical hardship assistance fund and offered free access to LifeSolutions’ Student Assistance Program.
Graduate student workers filed for a union election earlier this month with the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board. At a rally before the union vote authorization cards were submitted, several speakers referenced the change in health insurance as a key motivator for forming a union.
Marty Levine is a staff writer for the University Times. Reach him at martyl@pitt.edu or 412-758-4859.
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