Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article misstated how the University Student Senate receives its funding. The USS is funded by an $8 fee, charged to all students each semester. It is not funded by the university.
Katie Gruszecki was diagnosed with breast cancer in August of 2018.
Ten months later, The New School announced that they would be switching health insurance providers from Aetna to UnitedHealthcare. The New School selected a third party brokerage firm, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co, to process student insurance waiver requests. When Gruszecki submitted a waiver application in order to stay on Medicaid and continue to afford her treatments, she was denied.
Students across the university have faced problems since the switch, which was announced via email in June 2019. From the waiving process and unclear eligibility requirements, to inconsistent denials of plans, student organizers are calling for transparency from the university and autonomy in their healthcare decisions.
Gruszecki felt like her only option was to disclose her medical condition to members of The New School’s administration. After that, her waiver was approved.
“I had gone to the dean’s office, and I won’t say who from the dean’s office I spoke to, but somebody at the dean’s office had told me you need to express the urgency in regards to your medical condition,” said Gruszecki, who is 29 and a master’s student in philosophy at NSSR. “And that I need to CC the dean and then I need to tell them the urgency of this and have the waiver processed immediately.”
In her email to the former associate vice president of Student Success, Monique Rinere, she stated, “If I miss treatment, I could die. This is not just financial.” The New School Free Press was unable to reach Rinere for comment as she is no longer employed by The New School as of September 2019, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Luisa Minopoli, 29, an international student also in the philosophy department, had her waiver request denied. Minopoli was forced to enroll in UnitedHealthcare’s insurance, instead of retaining her Danish one. She started her appeal process Sept. 7, but did not receive approval from Gallagher until Oct. 9.
“I’ve been emailing so many people. I think in the end someone just told them to fix my case. I felt it was just to silence me,” she said. “And then I received a waiver but it said that it was a one-time-exception only, and my health insurance plan was not ACA compliant. I feel they just did it to make me stop complaining about it.”
Minopoli said she wished The New School had been more transparent with the eligibility requirements, as well as being up front with what they expected students to provide.
“We recognize that the transition to the new student health insurance plan posed a number of challenges for our students. In response to your feedback, the university and Gallagher are working together to provide better, faster, and more tailored service,” wrote university spokesperson Amy Malsin in a statement provided to the New School Free Press.
The university said they would streamline the waiver request form, as well as growing and retraining Gallagher’s call center.
The University Student Senate (USS), which is funded by an $8 per semester student fee, held a Health Insurance Town Hall on Oct. 28 to elicit student responses. During the hour-long event, students voiced their concerns about the new insurance fees, waivers, lack of coverage, and demanded transparency from administration.
Following the town hall, the USS shared an anonymous online survey for students to explain the problems they’ve been facing since the switch. In the first week the survey was available, which the USS said collected more than 300 responses. The survey is still available, but the USS compiled results after one week in a report that will be delivered to Kevin Williams, the dean of students.
“Everybody seems to mention transparency. We all are asking ourselves, how much of an understanding did the administration have that the waiving process was going to be this difficult?,” said Gus Sampaio, a co-chair of the USS. “I would say that it was a decision that in no way took equity into account.”
Students’ complaints ranged in subject matter from financial issues to difficulty accessing providers, and according to the USS, the largest trend seen was a request for accountability from the school. Sampaio mentioned the possibility of more events like the town hall taking place in the future, so students have a space in which to ask questions and receive real answers.
“I do see a real effort and wanting on the part of the administration to address the issue, which is great,” Sampaio said. “How that’s going to look, however, I don’t know. I don’t know what the contract looks like with UnitedHealthcare, so I don’t know what the possibilities are.”
Not every student is as hopeful as student senators that The New School will take their concerns seriously.
“These town halls are a total farce. It’s just an excuse to be able to say that they’ve listened to us. But even saying that they need a town hall just proves that they have not been listening to us, because we’ve been in communication with them since the very beginning,” Gruszecki said.
Gruszecki, as well as several other out-of-state and international students, have brought their concerns to a number of administrators: Williams, the dean of students, as well as Tracy Robin, assistant vice president of Student Health Services and Gale Lynch, senior director of International Student and Scholar Success (ISSS). They feel that their complaints have fallen on deaf ears.
“The health and wellbeing of our students is our top priority,” wrote Malsin. “We understand that students would like to participate in decisions that affect their time at The New School. To encourage student participation in the dialogue surrounding issues that impact the campus community, we recently formed the Student Leadership Team (SLT) as a new opportunity to gain feedback.”
A PhD student at NSSR, who asked to be kept anonymous for safety reasons, felt similar frustrations when looking for more clarity in the waiver process. The student was enrolled in a Dutch insurance plan and got their waiver denied.
The student decided not to appeal directly to UnitedHealthcare. They emailed Rinere, the administrator who no longer works at The New School, to inquire about whether there was additional financial assistance that they could be given to cover the cost of UnitedHealthcare, knowing other students had emailed and worked something out.
The PhD student said Rinere told them that their existing scholarship would be more than enough to cover the health insurance costs, and that the financial situations of other students could not be commented on.
“I didn’t even know what ACA compliance was before this ordeal,” they said. “I tried to avoid going to every hospital [on UnitedHealthcare]. I don’t understand anything regarding American insurance, I feel more comfortable with my Dutch one.”
A Gallagher representative reached out to this student and the situation has since been resolved, but not without detriment.
“I was uncovered for a week,” they said, explaining how they had to unenroll from the Dutch plan, then cancel and re-enroll when their waiver grant went through. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to re-enroll. If I get [my reimbursement] in a month I consider myself lucky.”
This student said they never spoke with anyone from the university face-to-face.
On Sept. 5, four days before the waiver deadline, international students received an email from ISSS stating an important update on the “Public Charge Rule” enacted Aug. 14 by the Trump administration. This rule stated that noncitizens who are enrolled in public health benefits like Medicaid or food stamps could potentially be denied visa renewal or permanent residency in the future, as they would be deemed dependent on public services reserved for United States citizens.
The email stated: “If you have hopes of pursuing another US visa status in the future, we advise you to take this Public Charge rule into account. We are also aware that the deadline to waive the 2019-2020 student health insurance plan is approaching next week, September 9, 2019, and we thought this information would be important in thinking through whether or not to waive the student health insurance plan. ”
The policy was set to be ruled on in October, which the email stated. When Minopoli emailed to ask if the waiver deadline could be extended until after a decision was reached by several US District Courts, she did not receive a response back from Lynch until after the waiver deadline. An injunction was filed on Oct. 11, and the rule change is not currently in effect.
Miguel Paley, another student in NSSR’s philosophy program, has been at The New School since 2011. Paley has faced a series of issues with his insurance coverage in the last six months. In June of this year, Paley had knee surgery that was covered under the school’s previous provider, Aetna.
When the transition from Aetna to UnitedHealthcare was announced, Paley chose to enroll in Medicaid and submit an insurance waiver to Gallagher. Paley’s waiver application was approved, and he continued attending post-surgical physical therapy with a therapist covered under his supplemental Medicaid insurance. People on Medicaid also enroll in a supplemental insurance, which covers initial costs.
“About a few weeks ago, somebody reported to the New York State Board of Health that I was enrolled with Gallagher/UnitedHealthcare, which is not true,” Paley said. “I don’t know if it was Gallagher, United, or The New School who reported this, but it was a lie, and it seems to me that whoever said it lied to a government agency.”
Because of this false report, Paley was unenrolled from his supplemental insurance provider. Paley said that after spending hours on the phone with the New York State Board of Health, he was told to reach out to Gallagher and UnitedHealthcare and get a le tter confirming he is not enrolled in their insurance plans. Multiple attempts to procure this letter from Gallagher and UnitedHealthcare’s customer service failed, so Paley turned to a different route for support.
“I didn’t know what to do, so then I emailed a bunch of people at The New School Student Health Services and Student Success, and I said, ‘Gallagher has refused to give me a letter. I’ve done everything by the rules, I’m in the middle of post-surgical care and I need my therapy,’” said Paley. “Pretty quickly after that, somebody contacted United and somehow got them to send me a letter saying I am not enrolled.”
Now that he’s received the letter, Paley has been re-enrolled with his supplemental provider. However, his coverage won’t be activated until Dec. 1, meaning that it is unclear how or whether he will be able to afford this month’s therapy.
Paley, along with many students, is confused as to how The New School went about making decisions related to the insurance transition when it has resulted in problems for so many students.
“The concern often seems to be money or logistics. There are many reasons for why the insurance change happened, but none of those reasons have anything to do with students,” Paley said.
India Roby contributed reporting