Health care reform will benefit students, BU health officials say

President Barack Obama’s new health care reform bill will ultimately help students with a few exceptions, said members of the Boston University medical and public health community.

According to BU health officials, for those concerned about personal health, paying for health care services will be a less stressful process. For graduating seniors, shopping for health insurance will no longer be an immediate burden or fear associated with college graduation.

“Improved access to coverage after graduation, in 2014, and the ability, later this year, of young adults to stay on parents’ plans are both very valuable,” said Deborah Socolar, director of BU School of Public Health’s Health Reform Program.

The most important aspect of the new bill allows all children to stay on parents’ health insurance policies up to age 26, if unmarried, said BU professor Alan Sager.

Although it will depend upon parents’ health insurance plans, Sager and Socolar both agreed that better coverage will be offered at a lower cost.

The cost will remain low in the future, especially if the premiums of parents’ policies don’t vary with inclusion of children or how many children are included, Sager said.

“The law, eventually, in 2014, provides Medicaid or subsidized insurance for millions of families,” Socolar said. “Many students may be able to attend or stay in college who otherwise might find it unaffordable because of medical costs for an ill or disabled family member.”

Socolar also addressed the issue of low-coverage health plans.

“Currently many students find that student health plans are skimpy, with little or no prescription drug coverage, for example, and low dollar limits on benefits, leaving them uncovered for catastrophic costs such as cancer care or major surgery,” she said. “The “Young Adult Plans’ that Massachusetts insurers now offer also have dollar limits so low that they deny care to those who fall seriously ill.”

However, Socolar said the “skimpy plans” may be profitable for insurers.

Students using the BU Student Health Insurance Plan provided by Aetna Student Health will have to wait for information concerning future changes due to the new reform bill.

“The short answer now is that it is too early to know all the implications and ramifications of the health care bill’s passing,” said BU spokesman Colin Riley.

Although definitive answers do not exist concerning how the health care reform bill will affect student health insurance plans, including BU’s Aetna plan, such plans will not instantly vanish.

“Under this reform it seems likely that colleges will still need to offer group insurance to students, who may or may not have family coverage,” Socolar said. “That coverage is likely to change in a number of ways, however &- having to meet regulatory standards of adequate coverage, among others. I hope and assume that would include having to comply with the law’s requirement to use at least 80 percent of premiums for care.”
Students are aware that the new health care plan will affect them, but are not worried about details yet.

“I don’t think [student health care plans] will become obsolete over night,” said College of Arts and Sciences senior Matlin Gilman. “But, in theory, there now will be no rationale for student health care plans because all college students should already have health insurance before entering college, and their coverage should continue covering them while in and after college.”

First-year School of Medicine graduate student Ashish Premkumar said he believes student plans will be restructured, and possibly integrated with parents’ health insurance plans.

“I think there will be student health insurance for parents with college-aged children,” he said. “The thing is the new health care plan isn’t necessarily changing up a whole lot. It’s just taking all of the parts of health insurance and health law and shaking them up.”