ASMSU’s plan to formulate a health care plan for students was given the green light Thursday when Student Assembly approved a bill authorizing the group to begin working with an insurance agency to flesh out specifics.
ASMSU is MSU’s undergraduate student government.
The bill, which passed unanimously Nov. 12 out of the assembly’s Finance Committee, met virtually no opposition at the general assembly meeting.
Now, a subcommittee will be formed to work with Student Assembly Chairperson Kyle Dysarz and the Michigan Programmers Insurance Agency, or MPIA, to negotiate a plan.
Dysarz first brought up the possibility at the Finance Committee’s Oct. 22 meeting, where he told committee members the university is looking into making health insurance mandatory for all students.
About 20 percent of MSU students are without insurance, according to the bill passed last week. At Thursday’s meeting, Asra Shaik, the bill’s primary sponsor and Lyman Briggs representative, said the group hopes to establish a plan that is less costly and broader in coverage than the plan currently offered by MSU through Aetna Inc. Currently, the plan offered by MSU for an unmarried student costs $1,390.
“This bill is just pretty much trying to get ASMSU into getting another health plan, a competitive plan cheaper than the one the university offers,” Shaik said.
Dysarz said the group will incur no costs as a result of setting up a plan for students. The only way it would cost anything for ASMSU is contingent upon how much money the group spends on advertising such a service.
“The university currently pays nothing for student health insurance,” Dysarz said at the meeting. “It would be the same thing in our sense.”
Dysarz told The State News in October that ASMSU hopes to make it possible for students to continue to be insured upon graduation, as long as they were a taxpaying member of the organization. Under the university’s plan, coverage expires after a student graduates.
ASMSU spokesperson Portia McKenzie said talks with MPIA likely will begin after Thanksgiving. McKenzie said the organization plans to survey students to gain a stronger understanding of students’ needs.
“ASMSU is … in the process of planning to try and set up a survey for students to determine what aspects of the policy they would prefer,” she said.
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