GSS Meets With United Healthcare

Earlier this academic year, The New Political reported that GSS passed several resolutions calling for reforms to the current student health care, including dental coverage, prescription costs and a waiver for international students. In the future, GSS would like to see greater coverage for transgender students.

Since then, GSS President Tracy Kelly has learned that the IUC will be renegotiating with United Healthcare. What these negotiations would entail is uncertain, but GSS will be meeting with UHC representatives to clarify their suggestions and give feedback on the current coverage it provides.

Kelly said the negotiations are part of the university engaging in broader discussions with other state universities. She also explained that the negotiations are “not an 100 percent GSS initiative.”

“We wanted to participate in this to be sure graduate students are [better] included in the current policy,” said Kelly.

Kelly cited prescription costs as an example of the needed insurance policy reforms: “At Hudson, if you get a prescription, you have to pay up front and then they’ll reimburse you,” said Kelly. But if students are unable to pay for expensive medications right away, such as antibiotics, they are more likely to not buy them at all. “It causes some students go without the medications that they otherwise need.”

Kelly believes that GSS’s suggestions would benefit both graduate and undergraduate students, providing more affordable and convenient coverage.