UCSC is seeking to meet budget deficits by cutting health care coverage and benefits to its graduate students, including those with families and dependents. Lisa Sloan, Dean of Graduate Studies and Professor of Earth Sciences, asked the Graduate Student Association to approve cuts to current levels of coverage for the Graduate Student Health Insurance Plan (GSHIP). These cuts could increase the cost of co-pays for doctor visits and emergency care, decrease life-time coverage limits and probably, and most significantly, increase co-pays for prescription drugs, even those taken on a regular basis for chronic conditions.

Nellie Chu, graduate student in the Department of Anthropology and member of the Protect GSHIP Committee, underwent surgery last year to remove a 10cm tumor from her adrenal gland. Chu says, “GSHIP provided me with the affordable health care I needed to save my life.” With these cuts to GSHIP, however, Chu worries that access to healthcare will be out of reach for graduate students with serious illnesses such as hers. “We simply cannot afford to pay more for healthcare on our small salaries as Teaching Assistants,” Chu says. Read more

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