A booth of student leaders and community members on Bruin Walk Thursday educated students about their health care options in light of changes to university and national health insurance policies in recent months.
The event was part of a University of California-wide campaign organized by CALPIRG, a student group that works to challenge the influence of powerful interests for the benefit of consumers, according to its website.
Alongside CALPIRG members, Undergraduate Students Association Council President John Joanino and Ashe Center Insurance Manager Barbara Rabinowitz helped answer questions and provided perspectives on recent health care reforms, such as the Affordable Care Act.
“The Affordable Care Act is such an important step in assuring that all students have health care,” Joanino said. “Because of the Affordable Care Act, the UC (Student Health Insurance Plan) has to be in compliance with certain things.”
The UC has made changes in recent years to its student health insurance plan, including additional preventative immunizations and contraceptive benefits in voluntary compliance with the Affordable Care Act, Rabinowitz said.
The UC also lifted annual and lifetime benefit caps from the UC SHIP plan earlier this year, following negative reactions from the student body and media attention. Some undergraduate campuses, such as UC Berkeley, have even opted out of the plan after discovering the UC SHIP’s $57 million deficit.
UCLA students are required to have health insurance upon enrollment, regardless of the provider. Students do not have to purchase UC SHIP, however, and are free to choose a plan from government-funded Medicaid or through a private company, Rabinowitz said.
Morgan Culbertson, a UCLA alumna and campus organizer for CALPIRG, said she organized the event to help students realize the health care options available to them.
“When students aren’t informed as consumers, they’re the ones who lose out in that situation,” Culbertson said. “I think it’s really important that we prevent them from losing out on this health care market.”
Recent graduates who are not eligible for UC SHIP can be claimed on their parent’s health insurance or purchase their own plan.
Vincent Hennerty, a UCLA alumnus and former vice chair of CALPIRG, has been looking since June for a full-time job that offers insurance coverage, but said he has not been able to find a job in the current market.
After a three-month period without health insurance, during which he experienced a poison oak infection that cost more than $900 in medical expenses, Hennerty said he is glad the Affordable Care Act is available for him to purchase.
“I would rather pay $100 a month and know that if something bad happens, I’m covered,” Hennerty said.
The U.S. Congress is currently at a stalemate, largely because of the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law in 2010.
New programs within the legislation were set to begin last Tuesday, but the current government shutdown has delayed the implementation of some of these reforms.
Dylan Roby, an assistant professor of Health Policy and Management at UCLA said some Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives hoped to defund the Affordable Care Act and extract specific elements of the legislation set to take effect within the next few years.
Republicans are not likely to oust the Affordable Care Act completely, but they may succeed in taking funds away from programs enacted by the legislation, Roby said.
Democrats, however, have not yet agreed to any proposals that undermine the Affordable Care Act, Roby added.