@twoinanddone are you suggesting that it’s impossible to satisfy the insurance requirements a colleges sets forth?
@yourmomma I don’t know the answer… but both of my kids had to show proof of coverage to a certain level…and it wasn’t just ER coverage.
I will say…I think some schools (like my one kid’s) ditched coverage because initially they could not find ACA compatible plans. Then in their area, plans on the exchange became less (2 choices…one Kaiser, and one with a very limited doctor network). So…they went back to the drawing board, and are now offering the coverage through the school again.
Anyway to the OP…are there no other plans in your area with coverage OOS?
If a student doesn’t have insurance that meets the school’s requirement, but the school doesn’t offer insurance to its students, what is the school going to do? It cannot force place insurance and add it to the bill. Will that school cancel the student’s registration? That’s really the only recourse the school has.
This can happen for an OOS student who has medicaid in his home state, but the medicaid only provides non-emergency coverage in OOS places, like at the school. The student most likely cannot qualify or afford any insurance in the state where the school is located if the school doesn’t offer anything. Will the school turn that student away? It’s likely this won’t be discovered until the semester starts so the student will be there, moved in, probably on full FA, but no medical insurance for non-emergencies. Do you think the school will send the student home?
I think this needs its own thread…but I will say…we had to verify our coverage with the colleges PRIOR to class registration. In our cases, preACA, the schools did offer insurance, and if your home plan didn’t comply then you got the school plan.
Call the admissions office and ask if they offer a health insurance policy for undergrads. All the schools my kids attended offered a plan and you were automatically billed for it unless you filled out a proof of insurance form and gave them a copy of their health insurance card. Insurance had to be equal to or better than their plan.
@thumper1 sometimes you won’t find anything about health insurance on the schools website, but it will be in the fine print once you get all the paper work. It’s worth a call.
@twoinanddone - One of the universities Happykid considered for grad school had no insurance plan of its own. Students were insured through the state ACA exchange or had to show proof of equivalent family coverage.
@GloriaVaughn sure…the OP should inquire at the school. But there ARE colleges that do not have health insurance because they could not deal with getting an ACA compliant plan. They expect their students to have coverage anyway.
The U both our kids attended was very specific about the minimum requirements that students had to have. We got the U to specify exactly what said requirements were and then got H’s insurer to give us a letter (which we gave to U) stating that the family plan the student was covered under exceeded all the requirenents.
The requirements IIRC were: deductible $250 or less, OOP cap of $5k, $1mn or more max benefits for the year, Rx coverage and more.
I would ask the school for suggestions of where they suggest undergrads might get insurance meeting/exceeding their requirements. You won’t be the only parents with this Q & situation.
Most grad students are independent for tax purposes. If an 18 year old has to qualify as a resident of the state where he attends college, he most likely will have to use the parents’ income as the qualifying income for the ACA/medicaid (if available) and may not qualify for a subsidy. The ACA premium could be $600/mo. If he becomes independent for tax purposes (and really does support himself), he might qualify for ACA subsidies (or medicaid in the expansion states) but the parents will lose the other tax benefit of having a dependent student like the dependent exemption/credit, the AOTC, and anything else (in my case, my kids made me HOH).
It is not as simple as saying the student can just get the ACA policy in the new state. Some states have very few providers under ACA. I don’t think the OP is in the situtation where the school is making her have a specific policy but she doesn’t think her ‘home’ policy is sufficient. We don’t know if there is another policy available in the ‘school’ state, or if it would be cheaper to have one child on his own policy while the rest of the family is on another. For many group policies, it is the same price for one child or ten children. It sounds like the OP has a non-group policy for the family so does pay per person
Agree that many colleges require proof of coverage before they let undergrad students register. We had to submit details of the plan every year for one of my kids’ schools.
Regarding grad school, I strongly encouraged my kid to only consider PhD programs that included health care as a benefit for their students (some schools do, some don’t). We didn’t trust that the ACA would survive through the course of the length of a PhD program, so weren’t sure she’d get subsidies all the way through.
One of my kids purchased health insurance…individual plan…no subsidy. Under age 30. Premium never exceeded $350 a month. Why would the premium be $600? This is presumably an 18-24 year old…they have lower premiums.
Perhaps @sj1970 can clarify…but my impression from the OP was that the family had a plan and the kid was covered on that plan…BUT the premium was increasing substantially and they were looking at other options…
The rates are set by the insurer, by state. Not every state had low premium policies available as some student or low income workers qualify for medicaid. I think $350/mo is unaffordable for most 18-22 years old. Many of the non-medicaid expansion states have very few policies available.
I think it was North Dakota that used to have 23 private insurers offering policies but now only has 3-5. The policies just aren’t offered in some states. Kaiser just announced they have been losing money in this state, so their rates will be going up.
I’m not suggesting the 18-24 year old pay for their own health insurance. As parents WE paid for that for our kids.
The parents here are looking for options and they might find an individual plan that will be what they need for this kid.
Either that…or they will need to pay the increased premium on the policy they have.
As the parent of a kid who had a medical emergency in college…and another one a few years ago, I cannot recommend families assume they can self insure for everything.
It is definitely part of the cost of college, and should be a factor when determining if you can afford the college. It may be that a student has to stay instate if the student/family can’t afford the cost of an additional premium, or only go to colleges where insurance at an affordable rate is offered if the family’s policy won’t work for coverage. I couldn’t have afforded $350/mo for my child (or almost $10k in premiums for 2 kids) and she would have had to take that school off the list. To be honest, I didn’t even have it on the checklist when looking at colleges. The first time I even thought about insurance was at registration (standing in line 3 days before school started) when we either had to waive it or pay for it.
OP, is this for the year, month or pay period? Your budget is your budget of course, but if it’s $270 for the year and you get off your plan, the cost to insure you son probably will be in the thousands, so sticking with original plan may be the way to go.
“I’m very surprised the college doesn’t offer major medical to OOS students.”
They do, it will be expensive, definitely more than $270, but not sure if it’s more than $3K (270 per month) or 7K (270 per 26 pay periods).
arggh. My high deductible United Health Plan will cover D on the other coast. But, because it is high deductible I had to submit paperwork to school to request permission to opt out of their plan at a cost of about $2400 per year. My D has already had a few small issues that were taken care of at the school clinic and charged to my insurance. I would not want to have her without insurance, you just don’t know. The cost of my high deductible family plan is more than the cost of insuring D through the school, but it will not lesson the cost of my plan if she gets other insurance. Definitely evaluate your options, but you may find it is like comparing apples to oranges. Like buying a mattress. Good luck
“So…start there. What does the college require in terms of health care coverage?”
Nothing, afaik. We never had to show proof of anything.
" Our policy did cover our kids when they were out of state and continues to allow us to see any provider throughout the US (in-BCBS network has better coverage and nearly all the providers we’ve ever wanted have been participating & preferred)."
We currently have BCBS, which has been grandfathered for the last many years, and he is covered, However, it is going up ANOTHER $250 a month next year, and I’m already at my limit (self employed, individual policy).
"sometimes you won’t find anything about health insurance on the schools website, but it will be in the fine print once you get all the paper work. It’s worth a call. "
No, I already checked. Just for grad and foreign students.
“OP, is this for the year, month or pay period? Your budget is your budget of course, but if it’s $270 for the year and you get off your plan, the cost to insure you son probably will be in the thousands, so sticking with original plan may be the way to go.”
I wish it was per year. No, that’s per month. The health center at the school, which is included in their fees, seems fairly reasonable for most costs, and I guess if something extensive occurred, I could bring him back home. Here’s what they told me about the center:
"Office visits with a medical provider are $45 when the student has paid the health fee. A few examples of other fees: a strep test is $33.00, lipid profile is $39.00, an ankle x-ray is $97.00, and an elbow x-ray is $104.00. Procedures like excisions, biopsies, foreign body removal and sutures can get more expensive and range up to $300.00 - $400.00. "