Carleton’s Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) is exploring the possibility of a joint health plan with the graduate students of the University of Ottawa, after their shared coverage with Carleton’s undergraduate student union ended a year ago in an ongoing legal dispute.
In summer 2012, the Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) left a joint health plan they shared with the GSA to secure cheaper health coverage. The GSA is suing CUSA for their actions, which they claim broke contract between the two parties.
Under CUSA’s new health plan, undergraduate students paid $158 in 2013-14, while graduate students paid the $178 they paid under the same broker and insurer in previous years.
The GSA is looking at new options for health insurance before their current contract with Green Shield and Morneau Shepell expires Aug. 31, 2014.
Phil Robinson, GSA executive co-ordinator, said the Canadian Federation of Students passed a motion put forward by the University of Ottawa last week to investigate the possibility of pooling health coverage between several Ontario graduate schools.
“You save more money with a larger group of people in the health plan, because you spread out the risk,” Robinson said.
The GSA is considering the idea, although Robinson said he’s not sure such a large plan could be carried out before September.
“I think it’ll take a bit of time to figure out the economics,” Robinson said. “There’s going to be a lot of number crunching.”
The GSA has been conducting an online survey to ask graduate students what kind of health coverage they are interested in, and at what cost.
Robinson said the GSA will look at the survey and put out a request for proposals before making a decision about a new health plan.
The GSA is not excluding any options, he said, including trying to secure the reserve funds from the former health plan with CUSA, which the two parties remain in dispute over.
CUSA and the GSA have entered into mediation to end the dispute over whether CUSA broke contracts between the two parties by leaving their joint health plan, and to determine who owns the nearly $900,000 in the health plan reserve fund.
The reserve fund is a portion of money taken from the annual health plan fees and put aside as a safety net for extreme situations such as a pandemic.
Mediation involves discussion between both parties, to resolve an issue without going to trial.
“Our legal counsels have been in continuous communication with the legal counsels of the GSA on multiple occasions to have conversations about the matters at hand,” CUSA president Alexander Golovko said.
Golovko said CUSA and the GSA have yet to mediate the situation, despite several attempts to schedule meetings.
“There have been conversations. There have been emails back and forth between our respective legal counsels and ourselves, but there has not been an official meeting where we came into a room in the hope of sorting things,” Golovko said.
The reserve funds are being held in court while the two student unions settle their dispute, where Golovko said CUSA’s former health insurer, Green Shield Canada, will not earn interest on students’ money.
The GSA claims they have a right to some of the funds, while CUSA claims they have a right to it entirely.
“We’re hoping to have a determinative meeting in the near future to finally find a solution to a matter at hand,” Golovko said.
Neither party would disclose how much money they have spent in legal fees.
