Kari Travis | Echo
While Taylor students studied, interned and vacationed this summer, university administrators sat down to make a tough decision.
Student health insurance prices were rising at breakneck speed, with the previous years' charges of $430 for U.S. students and $640 for international students more than doubling to the tune of $946 and $1,348, respectively.
Vice President of Business Administration Ron Sutherland knew that something had to change before costs continued to drain students' bank accounts.
So the university decided to discontinue its student health insurance plan altogether.
"The snowball was rolling, and we had all the pieces together," Sutherland said of Taylor's solution. "We've got to stop the snowball. This doesn't make sense."
The drastic change in insurance prices is a result of new mandates under the Affordable Care Act. Those measures were enacted to provide better overall coverage for college students. Unfortunately, policies that intended to increase quality of student care also caused charges to multiply.
Taylor's student insurance plan was originally formed to provide coverage for simple services such as treatments for the common cold, flu and other basic health needs, Sutherland said. But new laws required student plans to reflect the same advanced coverage as employee plans.
In other words, student health insurance became twice as effective-and twice as expensive.
"Where we used to cover $50,000 or $100,000 worth of claims, this year it moved to $500,000, and the next year it's a million and the next year it's unlimited," Sutherland said. "So if you were to buy a student health insurance plan, and you were to need a double lung transplant, they've got to cover it."
Skyrocketing costs weren't Taylor's only concern regarding student insurance. In the past, 50 to 60 percent of students were enrolled in Taylor insurance plans. In recent years that number dwindled to just 30 percent, according to Sutherland.
The drop in numbers came shortly after Obamacare declared that children could be covered under their parents' health insurance plans up until age 26. Not a bad thing, Sutherland said. But when participant levels drop, costs inevitably rise.
And if cost-effectiveness wasn't enough of a debate in the decision process, the factor of regulated wellness provisions truly tipped the scale against a vote to keep Taylor's student insurance plan alive.
"There are now two or three (federal) entities that decide what is considered wellness," Sutherland added. "And they're moving toward the abortive medicines being included in that wellness provision because they don't have the same worldview that we have."
With questions of cost, participation numbers and moral conscience in the mix, the weighty decision became an obvious choice. Taylor officially dropped its insurance coverage July 31 but was careful to ensure that students would still receive basic health services through the university's contract with Upland Health and Diagnostics Center.
All undergraduate students enrolled in full time classes are automatically charged a health center fee of $72 per semester, according to Cathy Moorman, Taylor's bursar and student account manager. Students who participate in January interterm are charged an additional $21.
The fee automatically covers visits to the nurse practitioner, as well as some pharmacy and lab services. To receive other health care provisions such as physical therapy or advanced lab services, students must either pay out of pocket or obtain their own health insurance policies.
Taylor students may get low-cost insurance coverage through Anthem insurance, according to one of the company's sales benefit consultants, Jeffrey Morton.
Plans are built on a month-to-month basis with rates ranging from $80 to $150 each month. Students can cancel an insurance plan at any time, Morton said.
Students are not required by Taylor to enroll in a health insurance plan, but are advised to do so for their own benefit, according to Sutherland.
"Years and years ago we made strong statements about that," Sutherland said. "We used to say . . . you have to have proof of insurance or else you get charged for this. We have moved to a waiver system . . . we can't force anybody to have insurance. We have an expectation that people will have it, but have we been corralling students saying 'do you have health insurance?' No, we don't. We don't do that."
