The health care bill signed into law on March 23 consisted of a number of significant reforms, including allowing young adults to remain under their parents’ health insurance until they are 26 years old.
According to the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center’s insurance coordinator, Barbara Rabinowitz, it is too early to tell whether the reform will impact the Student Health Insurance Plan. The university’s outside insurance consultants are currently assessing the changes.
However, the reformed age provision appears to have the most potential for impacting UCLA students’ options and their decision to purchase SHIP.
Generated to provide health care options to those who are either very limited in their coverage or have none at all, the health care reform includes both immediate and long-term amendments that will take effect over the course of a 10-year timeline.
Some of these reforms include an end to health insurance companies denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions for children (and in 2014, adults), no lifetime caps on coverage, and the eventual requirement that every U.S. citizen be medically insured.
Before the bill passed, previous health care laws allowed full-time students to share their parents’ insurance plan until age 25. Scott Arno, a graduate member of the Student Health Advisory Committee, said he believes raising the age to 26, along with no longer denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing conditions, has the greatest potential to impact students at UCLA.
Arno said students will be able to choose between staying on their parents’ insurance until age 26 or obtaining their own private plan. If they opt for obtaining a plan of their own, they will have a greater selection to choose from.
However, Jamal Madni, Graduate Students Association president, said that because many graduate students are already 26 and above, the health care reform will only affect GSHIP utilization marginally.
Before the reform, SHIP was one of the health insurances that did not deny coverage to those with pre-existing health conditions.
UCLA students found in such predicaments could therefore largely rely on SHIP.
Arno said this reform is particularly influential for students who have previous health problems because it may “open up options to them outside of the dependent plan offered by the Ashe Center,” which he added is a bit expensive.
At the moment, there are many possible policy changes in UCLA’s SHIP.
If the law goes as follows, the current SHIP lifetime cap of $600,000 will disappear ““ whether that will take place for the 2010-2011 academic year is still under debate.
In turn, the legislation’s effect on the cost of SHIP remains unknown.
“Of the 10 UC campuses, we offer lowest insurance cost for the highest number of benefits, so I don’t anticipate the cost of SHIP going up, but we have to wait and see,” said John Bollard, chief of administrative services for Ashe.
Shahida Bawa, Undergraduate Students Association Council internal vice president and former Student Health Advisory Committee undergraduate officer, also speculated how the university’s insurance would deal with the possible disappearance of student services, including preventative care.
Bollard said that because SHIP attracts students for a number of reasons, he would be surprised to see students deterring to other options.
“We want students to have the best possible insurance program that they can, so if there are better options, then they should take them,” Bollard said.