When it comes to health insurance, do you save money or cover more people?

Graduate Student Association President William Rooks needs the answer by next week.

After the Board of Regents raised the out-of-pocket maximum for mandatory graduate health insurance from $2,500 to $10,000, Rooks heard cries of outrage across campus. Rooks studied insurance plans at peer and aspirational colleges, and he continues to meet with officials from human resources and the senior administration to reach a better compromise.

On Wednesday, the University can choose to institute a “rider,” or additional coverage not provided in the system-wide policy. One option could take the maximum down to $5,000, but would tack on $57 extra to the students’ annual premium.

Another option, which Rooks is advocating, would bring the maximum back to $2,500 and cost $86 extra per year.

Rooks announced the idea to graduate students Wednesday night and received more than 30 e-mails by Thursday morning supporting the extra fees. Although he’s heartened by the comments, he wants even more feedback.

“I’ve been asked not to go to the students with this option yet, but I have to,” he said. “To deny them a voice yet again is to repeat the same mistakes of the Board of Regents from the first decision.”

Although officials fully supported the new compromise, a cost-benefit analysis deterred them from the idea, Rooks said.

Because the University pays 40 percent of the mandatory policies, the $57 option would cost about $64,000 to fund the 2,800 graduate students. The $86 option would cost the University about $96,000.

Because only 21 students surpassed last year’s maximum, the cost wouldn’t justify the benefit of additional coverage that likely wouldn’t be used, administrators told Rooks.

“The problem with that analogy [of 21 students] is that it doesn’t take into account the credit hours created by these students who would be teachers, the loss of work on grants if they have to take another job or the detrimental impact to recruitment if we’re not like peer and aspirational schools,” Rooks said.

Another question is that of equality with the extra fee. International students don’t receive the 40 percent subsidy.

“They also tend to be healthier and use less health insurance, so essentially they’d subsidize domestic students,” Rooks said. “But right now, I want feedback on using the rider. We can figure out the details with the University subsidy later.”

For Ashley David, a Ph.D. student in the English department, paying the extra fee would be “not only for peace of mind, but also social equity for the community at large.”

David graduated from the University of Michigan, where she received full illness and wellness coverage. When considering the University, she worried about coverage but decided to attend to work with a specific adviser and do her research in North Georgia.

Last year she applied to the University of Missouri, where full coverage is provided, and was accepted, but she decided to stay again.

“But had I known last spring what I know today, I would have left,” she said. “It would have been virtually impossible to recruit me.”

The insurance coverage is a problem of location for Christopher Scocco, who works in an entomology lab on the Griffin campus.

“The coverage we’re given is for the Health Center, and if something happens to me, I’m not going to drive two hours,” he said. “A $2,500 maximum is a lot less … I’m willing to pay that extra fee.”