In response to the recent petitions on contraceptive coverage on campus, President John J. DeGioia sent an email to the Georgetown community this morning. He stated that after careful consideration, the university opted to retain their current health insurance model, noting that there would be no changes in contraceptive coverage in 2013 as well. DeGioia cited the plan’s adherence to the school’s Catholic and Jesuit identity, in addition to their voluntary nature.

The most notable petition was signed last Thursday by over 700 students, including law student Sandra Fluke and Georgetown’s Law Students for Reproductive Justice. This action followed a similar petition from the Law Center’s faculty, in which 66 members of the law faculty expressed similar disdain over the university’s current healthcare plan.

The full text of the email is below:

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Talk about an unfair disadvantage. CareChex, a division the Delta Group, a health services information company, ranked the District of Columbia as the state with the worst hospital care in the nation.

The reports on quality of care [PDF] and patient satisfaction [PDF] may rank our favorite non-voting American entity as dead last, but when ranked as a metropolitan area, D.C. fares significantly better: 32nd in cardiac care, 40th in orthopedic care, 19th in neurological care, 37th in cancer care, 32nd in pulmonary care, and 42nd in overall hospital care.

CareChex’s complied the rankings using a variety of public databases, including the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Studies’ Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems database and the Health Quality Alliance’s Hospital Compare All Pay database.

If you’re looking for a bit of consolation, the Georgetown University Medical Center was ranked 13th in specialty areas by a 2001 US News and World Report‘s “Best Hospitals” issue, and was awarded magnet status by the American Nurses Credentialing Center back in 2004.