After an outbreak of accusations of poor coverage, Massachusetts will begin to gather data on how many college students suffer from their insufficient health insurance to determine whether current student health insurance standards are adequate.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services will begin to gather information for area schools beginning in May, EOHHS spokeswoman Kristina Barry said in an email. The office plans to have the final details of their proposed data collection within the next two weeks, she said.
Two years ago, when the state made health insurance mandatory for residents, legislators did not include students because the Massachusetts Qualifying Student Health Insurance Program has required students have health coverage since 1988, Carol Pryor, policy director for the Access Project, a non-profit organization that promotes health care access, said.
However, various advocacy groups have begun pressing the state to update the 20-year-old program’s standards. QSHIP does not provide adequate coverage, instead leaving insurers with increased profits and students with a low level of benefits, Tufts University sophomore Vivian Haime said. Haime is an organizer with the Student Health Organizing Coalition, a Tufts group dedicated to student health care reform that is partly responsible for EOHHS’ initial review of the QSHIP program that began in late December.
For example, current QSHIP regulations allow student health insurance plans to have an annual cap, a maximum amount of spending the insurance company will pay on an individual’s behalf, of $50,000, Barry said.
The $50,000 is not a sufficient amount, Access Project Medical Debt Program Manager Andrew Cohen said.
‘Plans that people get through their employers don’t have these caps.’ Cohen said. ‘Essentially, only the worst of the worst insurance plans have these caps.’
Additionally, certain student health insurance plans place internal caps on certain services such as doctor visits or prescription drug coverage, Haime said.
Because of QSHIP, college students, even those who are long-time state residents, do not qualify for Commonwealth Care Health Insurance Program, the state-subsidized health insurance plan created when Massachusetts made health insurance mandatory for all residents with the 2006 Health Care Reform Act, Haime said.
Massachusetts spent about $72 billion, roughly $11,000 per person, on health care last year, Boston University health policy and management professor Alan Sager said. He said waste, from paperwork to white-collar crime, contributes to the state spending one-third above the national average on health care.
Although students represent a generally healthy age constituency, a medical emergency or a chronic illness can set a student back financially without adequate health coverage, Haime said.
Even a small health care encounter such as a diagnostic test ‘can confront a student with a very high bill,’ Sager said.
Most BU students, about 75 percent of undergraduates and 70 percent of graduate students, obtain their own insurance, either through a family plan or a private outlet, Student Health Services Director David McBride said in an email.
Aetna Student Health offers two university-sponsored separate plans for BU students. Both plans have a $250,000 annual cap.
Over the past two years, no BU student has exceeded the cap, Aetna spokesman Matthew Wiggin said.
QSHIP reformers said they hope the gathered statistics will back up their anecdotal evidence that suggests there are flaws in the current system.
‘We think that the data they collect will show that these plans are more expensive and less comprehensive than they should be,’ Cohen said.
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