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The Healthcare Advocacy Committee is engaged in ongoing negotiations with the university to ensure that graduate students healthcare remains affordable and comprehensive.

Currently the Healthcare Advocacy Committee is working with the adminstration to find an affordable away to provide students' dependents of students health insurance and ensure that students' dependents are informed about their current health insurance options. The committee also hopes to negotiate for a dental insurance plan.  

2006-07

 Stanford University announces it will cut dependent Health Insurance for graduate student dependents due to the large increase in cost of the dependent health insurance program and the low enrollment.

In the Summer of 2003, the Graduate Health Care Task Force and the Vaden Insurance Advisory Committee met with representatives of Towers-Perrin, the firm consulting to and representing the University in health care contract negotiations. In this unprecedented event, the Task Force had realized one of its goals of becoming a strategic partner with the University in directing health care policy for graduate students and their families.

2002-03

The Health Insurance Task Force developed and administered a campus-wide dental care survey to assess student interest, economic preferences, previous experiences and willingness to pay for dental care; 1167 graduate students responded. As a result of the survey, the University has aggressively sought vendors for dental care and, with the consultation of the Task Force, is working to develop a comprehensive health care package that includes dental coverage. In the Spring of 2003, the Task Force successfully negotiated a continuation of the subsidy program, proportional increases in subsidy amounts, and an optional dental plan. 

2001-02

In Spring 2002 the University announced a subsidy plan. Under the plan, all graduate students receiving income for work as a teaching assistant/research assistant/community associate as well as all student dependents would receive a subsidy to help meet the severely increasing costs of health care coverage.

2000-01

In the Spring of 2001, a memo was issued to graduate students from Cowell Student Health Service discussing the ramifications of SHC no longer providing HMO services for student dependents. The memo was thought to portend imminent and catastrophic cutbacks, particularly for student dependent health care services, and precipitated a crisis for the newly seated GSC of 2001.

During the Summer of 2001, the University administration provided a one-time subsidy to graduate dependents to help defray the drastically increased premiums of non-HMO health coverage.

The Graduate Health Care Task Force emerged from the advocacy efforts of the GSC and other individuals. The Task Force was founded initially by GSC members Ray Rivera and Lisa Wong, who had also been appointed to the Cowell Insurance Advisory Committee earlier in the Spring.

Pre-2000

As early as 1996, a merger between the hospitals and clinics of UCSF and Stanford resulted in massive deficits. The dissolution of the failed merger left Stanford Hospital and Clinics financially unsound, with deficits in the ten of millions. As part of their efforts to restore stability, Stanford Hospitals & Clinic phased out providing services as part of HMO contracts.

GSC Members Who Worked on This Issue in Prior to 2006-07

• Grace Chang  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  
• Maria Elena Gonzalez This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it  
• Ray Rivera  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Mark Smith
• Lisa Wong
• Stephen Hunt
  

Vaden Health Center

Additional Information 

• Provost: John Etchemendy,  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Vice Provost for Student Affairs: Greg Boardman  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Vaden Student Health Services Director: Ira Friedman,  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
• Vaden Student Health Services Assistant Director: Amy Baldwin, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it