Members of the Graduate and Professional Student Council discussed health insurance plans for graduate students among other issues at a GPSC general body meeting Monday night.
"An increasing number of students are underinsured or not insured at all," said Megan McCrudden, chair of the GPSC Student Health Insurance Advisory Committee and a graduate student in psychology.
In order to register, graduate students must declare on ACES each year that they will either purchase a health insurance plan offered by Duke or another provider. Some students, however, declare they are covered by a non-Duke provider when they have no coverage at all, said Hrisavgi Kondilis, a third year Ph.D. student in the Department of Immunology.
Many of the students who do not buy Duke coverage are single white men-for whom the cost of health insurance is considerably lower than any other group, McCrudden said.
She added that the smaller the number of students that opt for the Duke-provided insurance, the greater the premium is for those who do choose this option.
To amend these problems, McCrudden suggested, GPSC could move to create a system that would ensure all students are covered.
In addition to coverage of individuals, another significant issue raised was the subsidization of families through the Duke plan. Currently, health insurance for families is only subsidized if the graduate student includes three or more family members on the plan, such as a spouse and two children.
In many cases single parents or married couples do not reap the benefits of family subsidies. McCrudden said representatives should ask substituents how much they think family subsidies should be and how the family unit should be defined.
"I think people in general would like to see more categories for family options," said Tami McDonald, a second-year graduate student in biology.
Other issues discussed included the need to balance changes in cost with changes in coverage for individual plans.
Representatives asked for more information regarding the specific increases in costs that such changes would involve for GPSC.
A major factor in the discussion was the Graduate School's recent announcement that it will subsidize Duke health insurance for all eligible Ph.D. students through stipend increases.
This initiative spurred discussion of other initiatives GPSC could suggest to create a more efficient health care system and make its benefits more well-known among students. "I'm very content with our healthcare coverage," Kondilis said. "I feel like the general population is not well-informed about the services offered at student health and what the plan covers."
Students raised concerns about the under-utilization of student services such as Counseling and Psychological Services and the Career Center.
Bill LeFew, president of GPSC and a fourth-year doctoral student in applied mathematics, encouraged representatives to find out which benefits the Graduate School could provide to best help each representative's department or professional school. LeFew also noted the success of Duke's GPSC at a recent national convention. "We're pretty impressive when you look around nationally," he said.
Representatives also discussed proposals to increase GPSC fees to coincide with the University's measure of inflation and to amend the GPSC charter with regard to an attendance policy for representatives. The attendance policy would call for representatives who miss three or more meetings during a semester to lose their seats.
GPSC's Social Committee announced the success of a recent "Speed Dating" initiative, which 120 students attended. They plan to have another such event in the spring and hope to better publicize the same-sex option offered.
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