[Bgsa] your opinion about possible change to GSHIP

[Carla Essenberg]

Hello Everyone,

At the last GSA council meeting, we learned that the administration is
putting some pressure on us to switch to the UC-wide GSHIP plan,
because they have been offered a considerably lower premium if they
switch to that plan than if they stay with the current plan.  I have
just learned that we (i.e., Priya and I, along with the
representatives from the other programs) will be voting on whether to
switch to the UC-wide plan this Wednesday evening.  So, if you have
opinions about this, please let us know before then.

I've attached a spreadsheet that someone on the GSA Council put
together to compare the plans.  As you can see, the system-wide plan
covers a number of things that our current plan does not cover (such
as home health care, some forms of preventive care, and hearing aids),
and it has higher maximum benefits than our current plan. However, it
also has a $200 deductible for services other than those offered by
the Health Center (we don't currently have a deductible) and covers a
slightly lower percentage of the costs for most things.  The provider
for the system-wide plan (Anthem Blue Cross) gets pretty lukewarm
ratings from customers, from what I have been able to find on the web,
although unfortunately it is hard to compare with our current
provider, Nationwide, which isn't reviewed on most of the websites
that do health insurance reviews (I think because it doesn't sell a
lot of health insurance policies).  Some other things against
switching to the system-wide plan are that there is no guarantee that
the policies they give us in the future will be as good as the one
they are offering us now, it looks unlikely that we will be able to go
back to a UCR-only plan if we switch to the system-wide plan, and we
have very little control over the negotiations for the system-wide
plan (in the past, I am told that UCR has let the GSA take a
substantial role in negotiating GSHIP, but this is apparently not the
case for the system-wide plan) - so if we go to the system-wide plan
and then in the year or two they start offering us plans with poorer
coverage, or we find out that the health insurance provider is
treating us badly, there will be little that we can do about it.  One
thing that makes the decision tricky is that we don't currently know
what our plan will be like next year if we don't switch to the
system-wide plan - I would guess that we will be under considerable
pressure to choose a plan with lower premiums, which presumably will
mean that the coverage we get is not as good as what we have now.

Because switching to the system-wide plan would mean giving up most of
our influence over our health insurance, and because it is not clear
to me that coverage will be any better under the system-wide plan
(indeed, the previous estimates I have seen suggested that one has to
pay more for the same coverage on the system-wide plan than we pay for
the UCR plan) I am currently planning to vote against making the
switch.  However, I am no expert on health insurance and would welcome
your input (whether you are for or against the switch).  Apologies for
the short notice - I thought we were voting on this in April, so this
has caught me by surprise.

There is more information about both plans on the GSA website, at:
http://www.gsa.ucr.edu/Health.html#Links

Carla


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: President GSAUCR <president.gsaucr at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 9:41 AM
Subject: [GSAUCR] Emergency Council Meeting: March 16th at 6PM
To: gsaucr at lists.ucr.edu
Cc: Craig Nolen <cnole001 at ucr.edu>, Joshua Knapp <Jknap002 at ucr.edu>,
Rhiannon Little <reelitt at yahoo.com>, Heddie Nichols
<heddienichols at me.com>, Lisa Chisholm <lchis002 at ucr.edu>, Stephanie
Fousek <sfous001 at ucr.edu>





Hi everyone,
This is a reminder that there will be an emergency council meeting to
vote on GSHIP Wednesday, March 16th at 6PM in the GSA office.  Pizza,
sandwiches, Caesar salad, and cookies will be served.
Best regards,
Stephanie Fousek
Public Relations Officer, Graduate Student Association
PhD Candidate, Department of Comparative Literature


--
Rachel Cassel
President
Graduate Student Association
PhD Candidate Graduate School of Education
University of California Riverside
www.gsa.ucr.edu
Office: (951) 827-3740
Fax: (951) 827-6358

_______________________________________________
GSAUCR mailing list
GSAUCR at lists.ucr.edu
http://lists.ucr.edu/mailman/listinfo/gsaucr




-- 
Carla Essenberg
PhD Candidate
Department of Biology
University of California, Riverside
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