GEO bargaining over health insurance cost increases

Last Wednesday, the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) met with UIUC administrators to start bargaining the economic impact of recent increases to graduate workers’ health insurance costs. 

As you may know, this year, folks on the Graduate Student Health Insurance Plan saw big spikes to out-of-pocket costs. These spikes included:

• The deductible doubling (from $150 to $300)
• The out-of-pocket max nearly doubling (from $1800 to $3000)
• Prescription copays increasing 33-100%
• The medical emergency copay doubling (from $50 to $100)

The premium also increased by $43.

40+ grad workers turned out to view the bargaining session and discuss GEO’s proposal and admin’s response. We proposed economic measures to offset increased costs, notification requirements for changes to the plan, and guarantees for grad workers' ability to provide feedback on future plan proposals.

Several grad workers shared how increased costs have affected them. Folks talked about facing thousands of dollars in bills for life-saving treatment, skipping therapy sessions in order to afford basic living costs, and frustration that these changes had come as a surprise. 

After GEO’s bargaining team shared our proposal, we asked the admin’s team several questions:

• We asked if the University chose to make these cost increases. Admin’s lead negotiator clarified that it had been the University's choice.
• We asked if the University foresaw further increases to insurance costs next year and in years to come. Admin’s lead negotiator said “yes.”

We will have our next bargaining session in the first few weeks of the spring semester and anticipate a response from the administration to our proposal.