Insurance premiums drop
Students will be seeing an estimated 30 to 34 percent decrease in the cost of their health insurance premiums as a result of a health care plan available to qualifying graduate students.
USU insurance coordinator Noelle Hansen said the plan, effective in August, will increase the number of students and money generated under USU’s health care policy and, as a result, will lower student premiums. This is also the first time USU has been able to offer a health care package as part of graduate student scholarships, Hansen said.
“It’s been a win-win situation for all,” she said.
Byron Burnham, dean of the School of Graduate Studies, said graduate students who are full-time teacher’s assistants or research assistants will be insured under this plan. He said they will pay about $230 a year, 20 percent of the required premium. USU will pay the other 80 percent.
Burnham said USU chose to continue using First Risk as the vendor because it had the best price and benefits.
“While they’re in business to make money for sure, they’re also in the business of taking care of students,” he said.
Burnham said this plan will be mandatory to qualifying graduate students unless they can prove they are insured otherwise.
As offering insurance as part of an employed graduate student package, Burham said this will also help increase competition at USU. He said it isn’t right to simply employ students and not offer them this sort of benefit.
He said, “This will help keep the best graduate students and get the best graduate students.”
Burnham said this plan has been in the works for almost two years.
“We’re really pleased to have it. We’re really glad it came down,” he said.
Burnham said, “The constellations sort of came together and we were able to make it a reality.”
Hansen said the same plan is available to unqualified graduate students and undergraduate students. However, she said students who don’t qualify for the subsidy will pay about $1,165 per year, compared to the current premium of $1,780.
USU covers students regardless of preexisting conditions, Hansen said. Right now, USU is insuring less than 200 people, and she said most of them are high risk. Because high risk people are utilizing USU’s plan, premiums go up. Hansen said healthier people aren’t using it and, therefore, money isn’t being generated. This results in higher premiums, which cause fewer people to sign up for the plan.
“I never say that as a bad thing,” she said. “It’s just a death spiral.”
Hansen said this plan for graduate students will help USU’s policy as a whole get off the ground, with healthy people paying premiums offsetting increasing subsidies.
“This has breathed life back into insurance at Utah State,” she said.
For more information about USU’s health insurance benefits, visit firststudent.com.
-arie.k@aggiemail.usu.edu