On Oct. 16, the University of Georgia’s Graduate Student Association (GSA) claimed a victory. On that day came news that the Board of Regents gave UGA—as well as 34 other universities under its jurisdiction—a green light to implement a health insurance “rider” for graduate students employed by the university. (Generally speaking, a rider is like an amendment to an insurance policy; in this case, it is an added fee for more services.) If the university chooses to implement the GSA’s proposed rider, it could mark the end of what has been a relatively brief and civil skirmish, considering the dramatic saga surrounding graduate student health benefits that dates back to 1993 and includes, in one of its more riveting chapters, student picketing in the streets.

In August, over 2,800 graduate teaching assistants and research assistants who were mandatorily enrolled in the university-sponsored Pearce & Pearce insurance policy found out that their out-of-pocket maximum had been quietly raised fourfold, to $10,000. The university said that this was done to avoid raising premiums an additional 6 percent, on top of a 6 percent hike that it had already imposed. The news was devastating to the few students with expensive ailments, not to mention foreboding for any student prone to falling down a flight of stairs. After learning of the policy change, the GSA, headed by president Will Rooks, swiftly moved into action and formulated the rider that the university is now free to implement.

The GSA’s version of the rider would tack an extra $86 onto students’ yearly premiums in order to bring the out-of-pocket maximum back down to $2,500. The university also has an option to implement a $57 rider which would lower the maximum to $5,000, but Rooks says that grad students who were surveyed overwhelmingly favor the first option. In a news conference in September, university President Michael Adams signaled that he may use money donated by the UGA Athletic Association to share the cost of the rider to the tune of 40 percent.

In an interview with Flagpole before the Regents’ decision, Rooks, a public policy student, found parallels to the larger problems of modern health insurance, such as efficiency being valued over equity. “I think the very basis of insurance is that you come together and create a risk pool under the assumption that no one is going to be held out in the rain if they ever have to use this insurance policy. And by raising that maximum out-of-pocket so high, you’re making an inequitable policy in that the people who actually use it bear the heaviest burden,” Rooks said, adding: “That’s the trade-off we’re unwilling to make.”

The implementation of the rider would be especially good news to Nicole Camastra, a PhD student in English literature who has breast cancer and racked up $140,000 in medical bills last year. Camastra was featured in an August Athens Banner-Herald article that detailed how graduate students were taken off guard by the change in the policy.

Even given the financial reprieve offered by the rider (which will likely be retroactive to the beginning of the school year), Camastra’s views toward her insurance provider don’t seem like they’ll change much. “You’ve got to be really vigilant to make sure you’re not overpaying,” she said, adding that making sure her insurance payments come through is “like a full-time job.” Camastra notes that a surgery she underwent on June 11 was just paid for in October. “Once the bills start getting to the tens and hundreds of thousands, then, yeah, the insurance company’s going to look for a way not to pay it,” she said.

Graduate student employees can “hard waiver” out of the Pearce & Pearce plan if they can demonstrate that they are insured in a group plan elsewhere, but otherwise are a “captive audience,” as Camastra said. She mentioned that many of her married colleagues choose to opt out of the university plan in favor of their spouses’ plans and have fewer problems getting reimbursed, especially for pregnancy-related expenses.

In another change quietly implemented by the university over the summer, spouses of grad students on the plan now have a maximum benefit of only $50,000, markedly less than last year’s cap of $300,000. The GSA has not challenged this change in the policy—yet. “The rider [is] a short-term solution,” said Will Rooks, who is also trying to create a standing student advisory committee on the Board of Regents. “It’s part of a longer-term, comprehensive strategy.”

Jeff Gore