Around 20 students attended a town hall meeting about the growing UC Student Health Insurance Program deficit Tuesday, Feb. 19.
Senior Physician Diplomate Dr. Gina Fleming, Campuswide Senator Matt Mayeda and co-chair of the Well-being Cluster Student Advisory Board Pauline Nuth led the 90-minute meeting in the Student Services Center multipurpose room, which consisted of a presentation regarding the history of UC SHIP, the current deficit problem and proposed solutions to stabilize its fiscal future. A moderated Q-and-A session with the audience followed the presentation.
After adding the undergraduate component of the UC SHIP program in 2010, deficit grew to the current systemwide projected gross deficit of $57.41 million. UCSD’s total deficit of $15.9 million makes up 27 percent of the total UC SHIP deficit. Last year, the systemwide deficit was roughly $25 million. According to Mayeda, Nuth and Fleming, the UC Office of the President will have to increase SHIP fees for the 2013–2014 academic year for both graduate and undergraduate students in order to stop the rapid rise of SHIP’s deficit.
Mayeda said that due to a lack of cost control, the plan is progressively losing money each year. In five years, it is estimated that the SHIP premium will increase from the current undergraduate premium of $1,156 to $2,231 per year and the graduate premium from $1,781 to $3,440 per year. Since adopting UC SHIP, enrollment in SHIP has dropped from 64 percent to 60 percent.
“If it drops another 4 percent, we will lose $175,000 to $200,000 — money we rely on for provider salaries,” Mayeda and Nuth explained in their PowerPoint presentation.
According to Fleming, some possibilities to decrease SHIP costs include instituting more expensive premiums, separating undergraduate and graduate plans and diversifying the program’s administration over different UC campuses.
“The bottom line is we need a plan for our students that will be beneficial and helpful, and [we need to] move forward with it,” Fleming said at the event.
Mayeda, Nuth and Fleming stressed the importance of student involvement in gathering information regarding student health insurance needs.
“We want to know what are some of the parts of the plan that you can’t live without, and what are some of the things you’d rather see go away,” Fleming said.
Mayeda and Nuth plan to inform the general student body — graduate and undergraduate — through educational campaigns, surveys and by sending out an informational letter to all students.
“As your student representative, I’m really fighting, because I feel like this deficit isn’t UCSD’s fault,” Mayeda said. “It isn’t fair — we did not ask to join this. It isn’t our responsibility to pay this back.”
A survey is available on the student health website that asks students which types of plans they prefer and which features of SHIP they believe are most important. Student health advocates will also be on Library Walk the rest of this week.