Recommendations

The committee distilled its findings into 10 recommendations:

  1. Establish a University-wide policy that requires proof of health insurance coverage as a non-academic condition of enrollment for all University graduate students, consistent with its earlier action for undergraduates. (The Regents approved the proposed policy that requires proof of health insurance coverage as a non-academic condition of enrollment for all University graduate students at their November 19, 2009 meeting.
  2. The Workgroup recommends that the Office of the President explore in more detail potential savings through systemwide purchasing methods to reduce GSHIP costs for the University and graduate students.
  3. The University would be best served by purchasing “best in class” contracts for medical, dental and vision coverage from vendors with strong services and financial guarantees within each line of coverage rather than consolidating these services with one vendor. This approach is similar to the one used for UC faculty, staff and postdoctoral health insurance plans.
  4. The University should assess its capacity and the risk to self-insure medical and dental benefits, and to contract for administrative and marketing support. Under this scenario, the University would create an internal pooling mechanism to “pool the risk” of claims from each campus in a University controlled and funded health care claims reserve.
  5. A system wide insurance plan to cover dependents should be implemented with the student paying the cost for spouse and children.
  6. A system wide insurance plan extension for 6 months following completion of the degree program or during an approved leave of absence should be offered to all graduate students and their dependents with the student paying the cost for the extended benefits coverage
  7. The Workgroup places a priority on the health needs of graduate students who study/conduct research at a UC campus other than their home campus, and have named this priority as “reciprocity of health services”.
  8. The Office of the President, with support from GSHIP Workgroup co-Chairs, should identify a GSHIP Cost Validation and Implementation Team to proceed into the next two phases of this work to implement a systemwide graduate student health insurance program.
  9. An infrastructure to support the annual program must be established for the success of whichever plans are determined to be systemwide.
  10. The timing of implementation should be further discussed with Academic Affairs, Strategic Sourcing, Risk Services, Health and Welfare, and campus student health and counseling centers.