Health care reform affects MU
The Student Health Center is working to ensure students are still covered.
Published Aug. 24, 2010
With the recent passing of the health care reform law, adjustments to accommodate the law's regulations are being made.
The American Council on Education, ACE, along with 12 other organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Aug. 12 to clarify whether or not good, affordable health care will continue to be an option for students in colleges and universities.
Because the new law changes the way parents are able to insure their children, the MU Student Health Center is working to ensure students are still covered.
"College health professionals have been following the healthcare reform process pretty closely over the last year, watching what the president and Congress are doing," Student Health Center spokeswoman Pam Roe said.
Graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in six or more credit hours are automatically charged a health fee of $92.78 to their school tuition.
"If you were to come in with a sore throat, you would meet with your provider (which) is covered by the health fee," Roe said. "Now, say you get strep throat and they're going to do a strep test on you, there's a slight charge that goes with that."
An option for students wishing to purchase insurance is Aetna student health insurance. It is offered for $2,246 per year and is a requirement for international students. Roe says it assists students in paying for their medical treatment, which helps facilities within student health and some occurrences outside of student health.
"Aetna is an in-network provider with the university and with student health (that would cover) your strep test fee and the lab fee," Roe said. "If you're with BlueCross BlueShield we're not sure that they're going to cover that fee or not because we're not sure if they will consider us a network. Most of them do not. It has to do with the way the insurance companies contract."
According to the letter written to the HHS, colleges and universities are trying to work out any challenges the health reform law may create for students unable to purchase insurance. The American College Health Association worked closely to refine details present in early versions of the law.
"There was a concern about whether or not the regulations would identify college or university health plans and satisfy the individual mandate and provide adequate health insurance," ACHA Chair of Advocacy Jake Baggott said.
Another concern was which area student health would fall under. Baggott explained that student health plans fall in between insurance markets.
"The health insurance market reform section of the law basically requires the reform of both the group insurance market and the individual market, whereas student health plans fall in the gray area," he said.
Prior to the letter sent by ACE, a meeting took place with Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform. Baggott says the meeting served to directly express concerns by the associations involved in the letter.
"(The letter) is a follow-up to that discussion that provides clarity to the really important issues that needed to be addressed," Baggott said. "We believe that the (HHS) is trying to address the concerns and look forward to working with them. It's going to be positive for college health in general and most importantly, the students."
Working to adapt the reform at MU Roe says students with just the health fee will only be charged for those instances that are not within the Student Health Center walls, such as going to Urgent Care or the Emergency Room. For students who don't have Aetna but need the extra care, student charging is also an option.
"Hopefully, (we are) keeping things somewhat affordable because medical care can get very expensive, and we're trying our best to give students the best option possible," Roe said. "We're not sure of all the nuances with this healthcare reform but we are doing everything we can to help students stay healthy and keep the costs down."