<p>If your child is enrolled in her college's student insurance plan, what is the lifetime benefit cap? </p>
<p>Inside Higher Ed has a piece today about a graduate student at Arizona State who found out the hard way about lifetime student insurance caps when he was suddenly diagnosed with colon cancer.</p>
<p>
Guha thought he was being proactive. After arriving at Arizona State University in 2009 as a doctoral student in the School of Sustainability, he enrolled in the university's insurance plan through Aetna Insurance and paid more than $400 each month to add his wife to the plan.</p>
<p>The plan wasnt known for its generosity it didnt cover prescription drugs but Guha thought hed at least be covered if tragedy struck.</p>
<p>And last January, tragedy did strike. Just after his 30th birthday, he received the cancer diagnosis and started an intensive chemotherapy regimen two hours away in Tucson. Back in Tempe, his Arizona State professors allowed him to Skype into class discussions when he wasnt feeling well.</p>
<p>But late last month, the cost of his treatment eclipsed $300,000, the lifetime maximum benefit on Arizona States Aetna plan. Guha found himself uninsured.</p>
<p>Hes not eligible for Medicaid and he cant enroll in a federal insurance program for the uninsured until hes been without coverage for at least six months.
<p>This was actually the main reason I decided to keep on paying for my daughters private insurance and not go with the university plan. She is an only child , and we are self employed, so we have always bought her insurance as it’s own plan…way cheaper than a family plan since one child is the same as 10!</p>
<p>Anyway…her private plan was a $6 million dollar cap…the college $500,000. I figured one compound fracture with surgery and PT and it was gone!</p>
<p>Ironically she just broke her finger playing indoor soccer on campus two days ago…one trip to the health center and a referral to a hand specialist, and she is fine with a pink cast! Fairly minor thing, but glad I have that bigger cap just in case.</p>
<p>Are you sure these plans still have lifetime caps? That was part of the health care reform law. I remember when we had to remove ours from all of our policies at work… Maybe the student health plans are different.</p>
<p>D1 and I carefully compared the various insurance policies available to her as medical student thru her university. (She aged off my coverage 6 months ago.) Lifetime caps are one of the things I was most concerned about. Having been thru the expense of cancer treatments with DH ($750,000 over 2 years…), I knew that some treatment protocols/diseases can easily exhaust lifetime caps.</p>
<p>With our family’s experiences in mind (and mindful that she will be exposed to a variety of infectious agents and variety of violent individuals in the ER), we choose the the policy with the highest lifetime cap available. The extra $$ are worth it for my peace of mind.</p>
<p>We also bought her disability insurance.</p>
<p>And yes, I’ve met one such person who did run into her lifetime cap. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at 27, while she was a grad student.</p>
<p>Another reason to read the coverage terms carefully: Her first year in college, D ran into her annual prescription coverage cap two-thirds of the way through the year (she takes an expensive med on a regular basis), and had to pay full cost for the remainder of the year. I had never seen this kind of limitation in any of the medical policies our family had over a period of 30 years, so never thought to look for it. Caveat emptor!</p>
<p>What is particularly aggravating is that these same colleges offer a comprehensive, low-deductible full coverage policy to foreign students, because the US mandates it as a condition for getting a student visa. The restrictions and limitations on student health plans were ridiculous when I looked at them…Connecticut College had a particularly awful one.</p>