Heather Knauer avoids the doctor whenever possible. Knauer, a Tufts University senior, does not have a phobia — she cannot afford medical bills that her student health insurance may not cover.
Knauer said she learned a lesson from the staggering bills her sister’s minimal college insurance put at the feet of her family.
‘You either end up in two categories: either you don’t know what terrible coverage it is, like my sister, and you rack up incredible debt, or you do like me, and you avoid care,’ she said.’
The Division of Health Care Finance and Policy is currently reviewing Massachusetts’ student health insurance program in part due to Tufts students, including Knauer, who created the Student Health Organizing Coalition to bring attention to inadequacies in many student health care plans, Knauer said.
The review of the Qualifying Student Health Insurance Program began in late December and is expected to end in February, DHCFP spokesperson Jennifer Kritz said.
Simce 1989, every college student in Massachusetts has been required to have health insurance under QSHIP standards. In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to make health insurance coverage a legal requirement.
However, students were not included in the mandate and are not eligible for state subsidized plans that are cheaper and cover more than typical student plans. This means that the coverage QSHIP requires for students does not meet the state’s minimum standards for non-students, Access Project Community Research Coordinator Andrew Cohen said.
Access Project, a non-profit organization that promotes health care access, has found that this exclusion treats students like second- class citizens because they are forced to use substandard plans, Cohen said.
‘Students are pretty much the only group categorically excluded from the benefits of health insurance subsidized by the state,’ he said.
The mentality that students do not need coverage is the first thing that needs to change, Knauer said.’
‘I don’t think you can say, ‘Oh this is a healthy population so they don’t need the same healthcare plan as the rest of the population,” she said.
SHOC is growing on other Massachusetts campuses. At Brandeis University, sophomore Shanna Rifkin is setting up a satellite group. Students at her school also avoid medical care to save money, Rifkin said.’
‘The way the plans are structured, students are denying themselves care to put themselves through college,’ Rifkin said. ‘If our student plans were offered to anyone else in the state it, would be considered illegal.’
School health insurance needs to be comprehensive because students are less likely to also be covered by their parents’ health insurance than they were in 1989, Boston University’s Student Health Services Director David McBride said.
‘Insurance has gotten really expensive, so many families can’t afford [two insurance plans],’ he said. ‘So they choose the school insurance plan as the student’s primary insurance.’
Beginning in September, BU offered two health plan choices to students. In partnership with Aetna Health Insurance, BU created a more expensive, comprehensive Plus Plan for students who think the cheaper solo plan is not enough, Aetna’s BU account director Phil Chambers said.
‘One of the big changes, for the most part, is that students now have a choice,’ Chambers said.’
Both health care plans offer $250,000 coverage per policy year, which is five times the amount the state requires.’ So far the majority of students have not exceeded the limit, McBride said.’
‘I have not heard of a significant number of students who have found themselves not covered when they needed to be,’ he said.
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