The University of California demands that all enrolled students be covered by a health insurance plan, either by a private insurer or by the system’s own UC Student Health Insurance Plan.
But as it stands, the UC not only drops that requirement as soon as a student is not enrolled in classes, but it also revokes UC SHIP coverage.
UC SHIP provides students with up to a quarter’s worth of coverage after their graduation date. But if a student has to leave school for any reason before graduation, he or she is only covered through the remainder of that quarter’s term.
That means that if a student needs to take a quarter off to work or address family concerns, for instance, the student will be uninsured during that quarter, unless he or she was insured outside of UCLA.
This policy is particularly problematic for low-income or undocumented students, who are more likely to face financial difficulties that can keep them out of school and not insured in the first place.
A provision of the Affordable Care Act that went into effect Jan. 1 allows children to stay on their parents’ health care until the age of 26. But undocumented individuals, who are disproportionately likely to lack health care, often don’t have this safety net to fall back on.
To address this deficiency, eligibility for UC SHIP should be extended to cover any students who withdraw for non-disciplinary reasons for up to a quarter after they leave.
UC SHIP offers a higher standard of care for a lower cost than many of the plans on the health care exchange market. Even if low-income students can find a good deal thanks to federal assistance, it still leaves a significant population of undocumented students at risk for losing health insurance.
Because of their legal status, these undocumented individuals are ineligible to receive health care subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, which often keeps the price of insurance out of range.
This can spell disaster should a medical emergency arise, and could endanger that student’s possibility of re-enrolling at the UC should the financial strain of care become too high.
The current policy sends the message that the University cares about students – but stops caring as soon as a student has failed to enroll in classes for even a single quarter.
The formation of UC SHIP supported the idea that health care should be a right, not a privilege. Extending the security blanket to cover students for an additional 11 weeks out of the year would go a long way to proving the UC’s commitment to that stance.