Graduate Student Council Minutes

December 9, 1998

6:04pm: Call to order.

Secretary's Report:

Chris asked for approval of the minutes for November. Todd moves to accept with a second by Oliver. Motion passes unanimously Rich mentions that the minutes for June have not been approved yet, and moves to accept the June minutes with a second by Todd. Motion passes unanimously.

Treasurer's Report:

Rich Pierce, Treasurer, distributed the following report:

• 1997-1998 Carryover -- See below
• Fall 1998 Appropriation +$3600.00
• August 1998 -- pizza -$85.00
• August 1998 -- reservations -$140.00
• August 1998 -- photocopying -$4.85
• Alternative Careers in Science Symposium -$1250.00
• NAGPS Membership Fee -$400.00
• Art History Graduate Symposium -$700*

Note: Due to 1997-1998 Carryover, acutal account balance as of 10/31/98 is $9944.00. This number likely takes into account items 1-6. If items 7 & 8 are also included (-$1100), the actual balance is closer to $8844.

*Additional funds ($400 - $700) may be appropriated at a later time pending further evidence that significant funding has been sought from sources other than the GSC.

Discussion:

Rich gave an update on the $140 reservations mystery, he has a reference number for the transaction from accounts payable, and they're trying to track down who the bill was submitted by. It is possible that it is an account number switch and this wasn't a GSC transaction.

The amount of dues we pay to NAGPS to some extent is up to us. Regardless of how much you pay the benefits you receive are the same. They encourage GSC's that can afford it to pay more to help subsidize the memberships of GSC's that receive less funding from their schools. After some discussion, Virginia (with a second by Jordi) moved to pay $400 in the interests of grad student solidarity. The motion passed unanimously.

Funding Request:

Mara Hanewald submitted a funding request for the German and History Departments joint Graduate Student Conference.

This is a conference that we have supported in the past, and they have complied with all of our restrictions on using our funding. After a very brief discussion, Chris moved to fund at $2000. Motion passes unanimously.

President's Report:

• Living Wage petition:

• Student Council:

QualChoice Presentation:

Discussion:

Dr. Turner stated that they want to address whatever concerns we have regarding the plan, so rather than a formal presentation, they wished to solicit comments and questions from the Council.

Q: (Amanda) Could you give us a brief history of QualChoice and its relationship with UVa?

Prior to QualChoice, the University used Trigon to provide health insurance to students. There were many complaints and widespread dissatisfaction with the Trigon plan. It had high out of pocket costs, it required a 20% payment with a low maximum benefit, and it also had no prescription or preventative medicine benefits. Students were leaving the plan when UVa decided to seek alternatives. QualChoice is owned by UVa and is a for-profit entity. It put together a plan that was meant to fix all of the problems students had with the Trigon plan. However, since QC was new, they made an educated guess at the premium and wound up losing approximately $500000. By increasing the premiums to this year's costs, they expect to break even. If they break even the only increase in costs next year will be the medical inflation rate, which is estimated at 6-8% for hospital and doctors' costs and 14% for prescription costs.

(Todd) While the two QualChoice plans both provide good coverage, many graduate students would prefer the option of being able to enroll in a lower cost, accident-type 80/20 plan. We suggest that a lower cost option be available.

Dr. Turner and Ms. Montgomery both responded that they've heard that a lower cost option and also the issue of paying up front versus an installment plan were the two biggest issues with QualChoice. To illustrate the coverage you receive in the QualChoice plan, they presented a spreadsheet comparing the QC plan to the health plans of the following schools: Radford, Loyola, UNC Greensboro, Florida State, JMU, and Montana State. For the most part, QC offers much more coverage than the plans offered by these schools. They suggested that if we endorsed a selection of health plans for grad students to choose from, that we should provide a spreadsheet showing the relative amounts of coverage offered by each plan.

(Oliver) A serious issue from the grad student perspective is having an installment plan available. Secondly, when presenting a comparison of health plans, we should attempt to remove all bias from the sample by comparing UVa's QC plan to other strong state schools and other schools that have a major hospital on their grounds.

(Todd) When will there be an answer on an installment plan?

All three of our speakers have been asked this repeatedly, but the decision is not theirs to make. Mr. Ferguson pointed out that QC will not take on the administrative costs associated with mailing and processing 12 bills a year as opposed to two. The alternative being suggested is having the bursar's office contract it out through the same company that offers the installment plan for tuition payments. There is no definitive answer yet. They have no objections, however, to UVa trying to facilitate payment with an installment plan.

Some final notes...

• The Insurance Committee meeting is 2/11 they asked for GSC reps to show up to make our concerns known. They will try and get us copies of minutes from the 11/30 meeting.
• They mentioned that if we ask for a hard cap on costs that they will instead have to drop benefits if claims paid exceed premiums taken in.

Old Business:

comments were made on Elena's letter to Casteen. After suggestions of shortening it, she agreed to edit it and mail it out.

Chris made a very brief report on the progress of the Health Insurance Committee. Elena and Chris met with Deans Huskey, Plog, and Sundberg to discuss the proposal. All three were reasonably receptive to our request, however they advised us that we need to spell out where we expect the funding to come from. They suggested two options:

• Fringe benefit increase for grads: If we assign a fringe benefit rate to grads to cover the subsidy, the money for the subsidy will come from the funding agency for grads working as RAs, and from the Dean's office for those working as TAs. There are two problems here -- (1) we don't specify where the Dean's office will get the funds to pay for the TAs fringe benefits, and (2) those paid entirely from fellowships will get no subsidy as there is no fringe benefit paid on fellowships.
• Tuition increase: If we request a line item increase to tuition (i.e. on your grad tuition bill will be the line $628 - QualChoice health plan), the money for the subsidy will again come from funding agencies for RAs, and from the Dean's office for TAs and fellowship students. Students who receive no funding from the University will have their health insurance costs added show up as part of their tuition. This may seem odd, students asking to have tuition increased, but for grads who receive a tuition subsidy, they will then receive a health plan subsidy. For students who receive no tuition subsidy, they will have to pay the additional fee for the health plan. However since all grads are required to have health insurance anyway, this will not add any additional costs to those that grads are already facing. However, since the QC plan is expensive and students currently are certainly not required to buy the QC plan, we should ensure that students can have this fee removed from their bill with proof of other insurance.

New Business:

Meeting adjourned 7:00 pm (?)