Required insurance shows results

The UNC system recently made health insurance mandatory for all students and is preparing to release a draft of its statewide insurance plan — steps that some public universities took years ago.

In a sign that bodes well for the UNC system, many of those schools are pleased with the results. One school has seen the popularity of its campus insurance plan skyrocket.

The University of California system made health insurance mandatory in 2001, allowing individual campuses to craft their own insurance plans to offer to students.

“University of California is a very large system. It needed to ensure that those students who are away from home will access care if they need it,” said Elaine Grimmesey, insurance coordinator for UC-Santa Barbara.

Students with insurance are more likely to access care, making it less likely that they’ll need to drop out later because of a more severe illness that is more costly to treat, she said.

“If you’re 19 or 20, you’re not going to go to a doctor if it costs money.”

If students already have insurance, often through a parent, they can opt out of the campus plan by filing a waiver. The number submitted has steadily decreased since 2001, Grimmesey said.

In fall 2008, the last time the university collected data, about 5,800 waivers were approved while almost 13,000 undergraduates were on the plan. The number of waivers is down from 9,000 in 2001.

To encourage participation in the plan, the annual cost of the university plan, $982.35, is built into every financial aid package.

UNC’s plan is projected to cost between $549 and $679.

The larger the potential number of people buying the plan, the lower a premium a school is able to negotiate, said Scott Otte, chief financial officer at Florida State University’s Thagard Student Health Center.

FSU has mandatory insurance and offers three university plans that all cost less than $1,300.

“Anybody off the street looking to do that would not have any luck,” Otte said. “One of the advantages of the mandatory situations is it gives us bargaining power.”

At the University of Maryland at College Park, health insurance is mandatory beginning with this year’s freshmen.

University Health Center Director Sacared Bodison cited the same reasons as most universities — students are going untreated because they either can’t afford care or are not willing to pay for it.

“So many schools require it and most students are covered,” she said. “We make no recommendations. All we do is ask that they are covered.”


Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.