Students hang on to health insurance

In periods of economic hardship, those who lose their jobs are faced not only with the difficult task of making ends meet, but also with securing health care once provided by employers.

The United States was home to at least 47 million uninsured Americans in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

President Barack Obama has tried to decrease this number with his recent expansion of state health care programs in early February.

For college students, being in university does not necessarily offer a shield from recession. But those who are able to stay enrolled as fees rise at least enjoy health care benefits not available to most Americans.

Colleges and universities generally offer lower rates for inclusive health-care plans to their students.

For students at UCLA, the Student Health Insurance Plan is assessed to student BAR accounts as a cost of attending the university, said Barbara Rabinowitz, insurance coordinator for the Arthur Ashe Student Health and Wellness Center.

Mikael Miller, a second-year linguistics student, was uninsured before acquiring SHIP.

“I was living on my own, and I didn’t have family support, so I was no longer covered under my parents’ plan,” Miller said.

He said he could not get his own insurance because he was under 18.

“It’s really convenient, especially when you live on campus, to have the health care provider right there,” Miller said.

Both the undergraduate and graduate SHIP plans offer comprehensive coverage, including vision and behavioral insurance.

The undergraduate plan has an optional dental component that is mandatory for graduates.

Rabinowitz said SHIP, which is purchased on a quarterly basis, provided insurance for 7,807 graduate students and 15,216 undergraduate students in the winter of 2008.

Students are immediately assessed the cost of SHIP, and have the option to waive it if they have comparable coverage provided by a U.S. company, Rabinowitz said.

She said the plan is a good option for students because of its price.

For other Americans, however, the story is much more grim.

Debates about federal health care reform are still ongoing.

But as part of the recent stimulus package, Obama signed legislation in February expanding Medicaid, state-provided health insurance, and the State Children’s Health Insurance Plan, which are known as Medi-Cal and Healthy Families in California, respectively.

“I think there are two goals with these expansions. … (Obama’s) trying to help states and at the same time help people,” said Arleen Leibowitz, a professor of public policy.

Leibowitz said Medicaid is usually one of the largest expenses for most states, so expansions would especially benefit states at a time when most budgets are being drained.

In addition to expanding existing state programs, the stimulus package will address health care by funding information and prevention technology, said Fernando Torres-Gil, professor of social welfare and public policy.

He said the plan will subsidize COBRA, a federal program that allows unemployed Americans to keep their health insurance for a certain time past their unemployment.

However, said Torres-Gil, expansionary measures will only do so much. He said such plans will be extremely beneficial in terms of improving existing programs, but actual health care reform, or universal coverage, must come in the future.

Daniel J.B. Mitchell, professor emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and the UCLA School of Public Affairs, said the biggest obstacle for universal health care, aside from cost, is the political challenge of competing interest groups and lobbyists.

Insurance companies, doctors, hospitals and labor unions, to name a few, will all have a vested interest in keeping the current health care system, Mitchell said.

“People get very nervous when you ask them to change from something they know to something they’re not sure of,” Mitchell said.

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