Benefits
Family Health Care
Everyone who works at Yale for at least 20 hrs/wk receives free health care for their entire family. At Yale, a graduate students pays $1000/year to cover a spouse or domestic partner, and pays $2000/year for family health care.
Dental
Everyone who works at Yale with a contract for at least 20 hrs/week receives dental benefits. For Yale graduate students and teachers, there is no support for dental care at all. We could be provided the same coverage as other Yale employees, or we could at least be provided vouchers for subsidized dental cleanings.
Child-care subsidies
University of Michigan and UMass-Amherst, for example, have a fund to which grad students can apply for need-based child-care subsidies. At both, of course, graduate students are covered by a union contract that provides these benefits.
Parental Leave
If you do not take a full-semester LOA, you are expected to make full degree progress. If you do take a LOA, then you lose your health care and your stipend.
Health Care: A History
You may soon hear administrators saying that all the benefits listed above are impossible and far too expensive. Don't worry. Administrators said exactly the same thing about individual health care fees for graduate students.
GESO knew otherwise, and so we acted collectively. And now we have free health care for all PhD students! Read this story to hear how it happened:
Summer 1997 (GESO survey results)
November 1997 (GESO membership votes on health care campaign; Mtgs with YHP officials begin)
December 1997 (GESO reps continue meeting with Yale Health Plan officials)
March 1998 (Working with EFG on an alternative health plan)
April 1998 (The petition is submitted. The first Health Care gains announced)
July 1998 (Improvements to Out-of-Area coverage announced)
August 1998 (The Big Victory: free health care for all PhD students!)
Details of the health care changes: How it was and How it is.
Over the summer of 1997, a GESO survey found that Health Care was the #1 issue that graduate students in all three divisions would like to see resolved in a contract.
On November 19, 1997, the GESO membership voted overwhelmingly (99%) to support the following:
I believe that Yale needs to improve its health care services and make these services more affordable for graduate students and their dependents. Therefore, I support a GESO campaign to press Yale to improve its health coverage for graduate students. As part of that campaign, I authorize GESO to seek out possible group alternatives to the current Yale Health Plan.
GESO is therefore currently in negotations with other insurance providers to design a plan customized for the needs of Yale graduate students. When such a customized plan is fully developed, GESO members will decide whether to withdraw from Yale's plan. Watch this space to hear about the results of what we find!
GESO is also currently in negotiation with officials from the Yale Health Plan. If the administration is able to solve the problems with their current plan, then graduate students will not feel the need to withdraw from it.
The first meeting was held on November 10, 1997, with the following people: Paul Genecin, the Director of the YHP; Chris Kielt, Deputy Director of YHP; Nancy Creel, Manager of Member Services; Scott Saul, American Studies GESO representative; Wendi Walsh, Psychology GESO representative; and Mimi Richardson, Chemistry GESO representative. At this meeting, the focus was on GESO raising its concerns and all present brainstorming possible avenues of improvement.
The second meeting was held on December 8, 1997, including everyone above plus Antony Dugdale, Religious Studies GESO representative; and Brian Call, the graduate student elected by the assembly to serve on the YHP Consumer Advisory Committee.
At this meeting, GESO representatives focused on some of the most important problems:
- The spouses/dependents of graduate students must pay exhorbatant fees to receive health care: Covering a dependent costs almost two and half times more than covering a graduate student ($660 vs. $1,644 per person). Insuring a spouse or a family is unfeasible for most grad students.
- The YHP only covers "life-threatening emergencies" outside the New Haven area, and the scope of such emergencies has often been too narrowly interpretted.
- The YHP offers no possibility for any coverage when graduate students must go abroad to do field-work or other research.
- There is no dental or vision care available at a subsidized or group rate.
- Graduate teachers are the only people on campus who can work over 20 hours/week without receiving any health benefits (staff and faculty working over half-time receive free full health benefits for themselves and their dependents).
- The terms and costs of Yale health coverage can change suddenly from year to year, because they are not bound by a negotiated, written agreement.
Mr. Genecin clarified that the Graduate School or the Provost would need to resolve the final two points, but that the YHP would work towards fixing the other issues. At the end of the meeting, he said "I can't speak to any details, but I feel confident saying that the Health Plan will look very different next year."
At the close of the meeting, we agreed on two things:
- YHP officials would be available to answer questions in the MacDougal Center on January 20-21.
- There will be a forum focusing on Health Care in early February.
P.S. The forum never materialized.
A week after this meeting, Dean Appelquist announced to the Assembly that improving the YHP was a "top priority" for the graduate school this semester, and he focused his comments precisely where, coincidentally, GESO was focusing. In the grand tradition of the graduate school, he announced that a committee would be formed to investigate further.
Over the first months of the Spring semester, GESO explored different options and decided to pursue negotiations with the insurance company recommended by NAGPS (the Nat'l Assoc. of Graduate and Professional Students). This company, EFG, insures approximately 200,000 graduate students nationwide. GESO representatives discussed the preliminary details of how the new plan would have to be better than the YHP, and then EFG came up with a rough blueprint of a new custom plan for Yale graduate students.
On March 31, EFG representatives flew to New Haven to pitch the plan and to hear comments/criticisms of it. The EFG plan:
- Has lower premiums for everyone, but the savings are especially pronounced for graduate students who are married or have families.
- Includes full coverage outside New Haven, unlike the YHP's limitation to "emergency" coverage.
- May include an option to purchase dental coverage (still very preliminary).
- Allows students to receive services at Yale Health Services, or Yale-New Haven Hospital, or Saint Rafael's Hospital, or wherever the student wants.
It should also be remembered that all Yale students, whether they buy health coverage from Yale or not, are automatically covered for most basic physician visits for free. This would still be the case for anyone on the EFG plan.
Many details about the new plan, however, have yet to be worked out. All of these details are subject to change, pending our final negotiations. Nothing definitive will be available until later in the summer.
On March 31, however, the EFG representatives also went to meet with Yale health plan administrators, to work out fee schedules and exchanges between the two plans. The folks from EFG invited two graduate students along, to be part of the discussions and hear what's going on. When the Yale administrator arrived, he froze in the doorway, stared at the EFG reps, and said icily, "I thought we had a meeting?" After a moment's confusion, the EFG reps explained that they had invited the two graduate students so that everyone could understand everything. The Yale administrator said only, "Well, if you'd still like to meet, we can," and stood there in awkward silence until the graduate students packed their bags and left the room. We can't quite figure out why he was so rude. After the students left, the meeting went very well.
On April 15, GESO submitted to President Levin a petition, signed by 1053 grad students, that called for negotiations and a written/binding agreement that covers health care.
On April 17, Yale sent out a letter that said that, for next year's health plan:
- The premiums for graduate students with spouses/families would decrease about 5-7%
- The reimbursement for "life-threatening emergencies" outside New Haven would be increased from a mere $35 to the full amount of physicians' fees.
The two issues that Yale decided to improve just happen to be the two issues that the GESO campaign was focused upon! Regardless of what happens, everyone has already benefitted from the GESO health care campaign.
The next question, of course: Is Yale's response adequate?
- The premium reductions are less than those offered by the EFG plan.
- There is currently no savings for single grad students.
- Outside New Haven, the YHP still only covers "life-threatening emergencies".
Some of these, and other, issues were addressed in a Yale Daily News article.
In July, Yale announced a series of improvements to OUT-OF-AREA COVERAGE. They include:
- Expanding coverage out-of-area beyond "life-threatening emergencies" to cover all "urgent care". For example, broken bones and stitches and other injuries will now be covered outside New Haven.
- Allowing coverage of out-of-area follow-up care, if pre-approved by YHP.
- Creating a grad school fund to cover travel medicine needs when such costs are incurred as a result of graduate research. This covers immunizations, etc.
In August we got the big news: Free Health Care for All PhD Students!!
Needless to say, grad students are ecstatic to see their collective efforts pay off so handsomely!
The skinny:
- The Graduate School will subsidize the hospitalization fee for all PhD students. This is a savings of $660 per student.
- The Graduate School will subsidize half of the health care costs for all dependents of PhD students. Thus, 2-person health care will cost about $1300, and family health care will cost about $1900.
Some questions that folks have asked:
- Yes, you have to pay for "supplemental" care, which covers prescriptions, if you want it.
- No, these subsidies are not available to Master's students in the Graduate School.
- No, these subsidies are not available to anyone whose degree comes from outside the graduate school. (An exception may be announced soon in the School of Forestry, as DFES students have been circulating a petition calling for health care benefits.)
Following is a break-down of specific, recent changes to health care coverage for graduate students. All of these changes were announced during the summer of 1998.
As It Was
- A single grad student is required to pay a $660 hospitalization fee.
- A married grad student pays $2750 for the hospitalization and primary care of themselves and their spouse.
- A grad student on the family plan pays over $4000 per year for the hospitalization and primary care of their family (including themselves, their spouse and their children).
- The Yale Health Plan (YHP) officially covers only "life-threatening emergencies" in their out-of-area coverage.
- The YHP covers only $35 of emergency-room physicians' fees in their out-of-area coverage.
- The YHP does not officially provide follow-up care in their out-of-area coverage.
- Grad students must pay immunization costs for their fieldwork at the YHP Travel Clinic.
As It Is
- A single PhD student pays no hospitalization fee. Yale University commits to cover the required hospitalization fee, as well as primary care costs.
- A married PhD student pays $1308 for hospitalization and primary care. Yale covers 50%&emdash;the other $1308. ($2616 was already a reduced rate from last year.)
- A PhD student with a family on the Health Plan pays $1902 for hospitalization and primary care. Yale covers 50%&emdash;the other $1902. ($3804 was already a reduced rate from last year.)
- The YHP extends their out-of-area coverage to include all visits which would fall under the rubric of "urgent care" in New Haven.
- The YHP agrees to reimburse in full the fees charged by emergency physicians.
- The YHP agrees to cover preauthorized follow-up care out-of-area.
- The Graduate School sets up a special fund to reimburse grad students who need immunizations for their work outside of New Haven.
Congratulations go out to all of the over-1000 students who signed the petition calling for health care negotiations!
Working Together is Good for your Health.
Collective Action Works!
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This page was last updated on: November 30, 1999 |
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Graduate Employees and Students Organization |
http://www.geso.org |
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