releases: https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/latest-headlines/mu-can-keep-offering-health-insurance-to-grad-students-but-still-no-permanent-solution-
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://www.mccaskill.senate.gov/media-center/latest-headlines/mu-can-keep-offering-health-insurance-to-grad-students-but-still-no-permanent-solution- | MU can keep offering health insurance to grad students, but still no permanent solution | 2016-10-26 | 2016 | 2016-10 | Democrat | House | MO | Claire McCaskill | M001170 | www.mccaskill.senate.gov | legacy | MU can keep offering health insurance to grad students, but still no permanent solution Wednesday, October 26, 2016 By: Ruth Serven COLUMBIA — Three federal departments said Friday that universities will be able to offer health insurance to students indefinitely. That's good news for MU's 6,000 graduate students, because the university won't have to adjust the health insurance subsidies it gives graduate assistants and won't be penalized by the IRS for continuing to offer those subsidies. Colleges and universities have arrangements for graduate student health coverage that are often part of a large and complex admission offer and acceptance process, the report said, and Congress believes that the Affordable Care Act should preserve higher education institutions' ability to offer health insurance. "It's certainly good news for graduate students who took health insurance subsidies," said Joseph Moore, spokesman for the Coalition of Graduate Workers, the union that represents MU graduate students. But the underlying issues identified after MU removed health insurance from its graduate students with little warning will remain. MU announced on Aug. 15, 2015, that graduate students would not receive health coverage. The subsidies were reinstated Aug. 21, and Interim Chancellor Hank Foley extended them through the 2016-2017 school year, but tensions between graduate students and the administration remained high. Graduate students formed a union and have been trying to get the university to give the union official recognition and collective bargaining. U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri and an MU graduate, had put pressure on the federal Treasury Department to change the rules earlier in the year. She and 16 other Democratic senators sent a letter to the Obama administration in June urging a permanent solution for graduate student health insurance within the Affordable Care Act. "Mizzou's hardworking teaching assistants had been left in limbo about whether they’d be able to access the affordable, quality health insurance they'd relied on," McCaskill said in a statement on Friday. "So this decision is great news for both the school and its graduate students — providing more certainty for the school year and beyond, and I’ll continue working to make that certainty permanent." Other universities have also struggled with the previous ruling by the IRS that said universities could not subsidize graduate student health care. Last month, the University of Kansas said it would be removing graduate health subsidies at the end of next summer, according to the Topeka Capital-Journal. Because MU had promised to extend health insurance subsidies through this school year, Moore said the federal updates won't change the day-to-day life for its graduate students. "It's not a permanent solution," Moore said. "We're just kicking the can down the road, and a collectively bargained contract would be a better permanent solution." The coalition is also seeking higher wages, guaranteed tuition waivers, affordable housing and on-campus child care. Foley did announce increases to minimum stipends in January. MU has not provided any updates on its plan for health coverage for graduate students following the federal updates, but spokesman Christian Basi said on Tuesday that the extensions will allow the university "the time and ability to work toward identifying a permanent quality, affordable, health coverage solution for our graduate students looking forward." Kristofferson Culmer, a doctoral candidate in computer science at MU and CEO of the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students, pointed out that the federal update still doesn't specify the length of the exemption. "We were happy to hear about the new guidelines," he said, "but we still have to make it permanent." Print Email Tweet | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |