Dear Dr. Etchemendy We are writing this letter to express the disappointment, frustration and, in some cases, desperation of Stanford postdoctoral researchers who have been burdened with staggering health care insurance premiums that far exceed their capacity to pay for them. We understand that health care premiums have increased for all faculty, staff, and students. We also understand that out-of-pocket expenses for postdocs without dependents have not increased because the University absorbed approximately 90% of postdoctoral health care costs. The remaining ∼$140,000 in increased costs, however, is being entirely paid for by postdocs with dependents – a population that comprises ∼15% of the postdoc community at Stanford University. For these families, health care costs have increased by 50%. Out of pocket expenses can be as high as $700/month or almost 25% of their take home salary. This is an unsustainable situation and we cannot wait for renegotiated health care premiums to take effect next January. Additionally, we are aware that healthy postdocs currently covered by the plan are fleeing to cheaper (and riskier) private health insurance, thus ensuring further price increases next year. We are calling on the University to take immediate action to alleviate these costs and make postdoc health insurance a priority item. Currently, there is only one program that provides $120 in emergency funds for qualifying postdoctoral applicants. This is not sufficient. Postdocs at UCSF and other bay area schools also faced increased costs, but these costs were absorbed by the institution and not shouldered entirely by a small subset of postdocs. While we are open to any actions that will reduce this enormous burden we can make several suggestions: 1) Distribute the increased healthcare costs more uniformly among all postdocs and/or faculty. 2) Cap heath care insurance premiums at 15% of salary and allow postdocs to pay for these costs with pre-tax dollars. 3) Incorporate postdocs into the faculty health care plans, or re-classify postdocs as Staff. These larger pools have the capacity to offset sick patients with minimal costs to the whole. 4) Increase the emergency health care fund to $300 and make it available to all postdocs with dependent health care coverage. We are hopeful that the University will do what is right and alleviate the burden that the postdoctoral health care costs are inflicting unfairly on the families of postdoctoral researchers. Forgoing health insurance for a spouse or child should not be the price for doing research at an institution as prestigious as Stanford University.