ISU students aren’t the only ones faced with skyrocketing rates of university owed money — next year faculty and staff will face a double-digit percentage increase in insurance costs.

After Feb. 1, rates for the university’s health insurance plan will increase by 13.3 percent for the coming year. Likewise, the university’s contribution to the plan will grow by the same amount.

The main reason for these higher costs is prescription medications, which are estimated to cost 20 percent more next year.

Experts say there are specific reasons why pharmaceutical drugs have increased in price so dramatically. Greg Yeakel, chief staff pharmacist for the Thielen Student Health Center, attributes the rising costs to the drug companies themselves.

It’s a combination of research costs and “their need to return money to shareholders,” he said. “Drug companies will spend millions of dollars a day on research.”

The insurance premium cost increase will have a large effect on the university, with a vast majority of the faculty and staff using Iowa State’s insurance plan.

“About 97 percent of faculty and staff participate in the university health insurance,” said Diane Muncrief, human resource manager.

In addition, Muncrief believes the costs will consistently increase in the years to come.

“Prescription costs have gone up in the last three years and it’s reasonable to assume insurance rates will continue to increase,” she said. “However, that’s not a guarantee, since we look at drug costs year by year.”

Some faculty, like Balmurli Natrajan, assistant professor in anthropology, will feel the effects of the cost increase.

“Any kind of increase [in insurance costs] is always hard and I don’t have much of an option to use any other type of insurance plan,” Natrajan said.

However, while the added cost will be difficult for some faculty, Muncrief isn’t worried that many people will drop the university’s insurance plan.

“We don’t expect faculty to switch plans to another insurance provider because the university has increased the amount it provides [to faculty and staff] proportionally to the increase of health insurance costs,” Muncrief said. “We have a good plan.”

She said rising costs of insurance weren’t isolated to Iowa State, but a national trend.

“The increases in [insurance] rates we’ve seen in other policies are as high as 25 percent. We were expecting an increase between 12 and 25 percent,” she said.

Also, according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], premium insurance rates have increased by 36.7 percent between 1996 and 2000.

Some professors see their rising insurance costs as similar to students’ rising tuition rates. Dr. Warren Dolphin, professor in zoology and genetics, said there is an indirect correlation between rising insurance costs and rising tuition costs.

Although there is obviously no direct connection with rising insurance and tuition rates, “I think it’s a sign that all programs are low on money,” he said.

“Health costs are some of the largest escalating costs in the nation,” Dolphin said. “The faculty has to pay soaring insurance costs to maintain their current level of health care and students have to pay soaring tuition costs to maintain their current level of education.”

In that respect, “we’re in the same boat,” he said.