SHIP and Financial Aid

<p>I'm trying to decide whether or not it would be worth it to waive out of SHIP since I already have Medi-Cal. On the bottom of my financial aid package it says that I will receive additional aid for the cost of SHIP if I don't waive out of the program. So how much extra money would I receive? Will the additional money cover the entire cost or just part of it? Does my EFC affect how much additional money I get for the insurance? If it covers the whole thing I'll stay in the program, but if not I'm most likely going to waive out of it.</p>

<p>additional question for whoever knows - is ship mainly covered by grants, or loans? or a combination of both? because if it is entirely covered by grants then there is probably no reason to waive it, but if its covered by loans to any degree, then it means that to waive ship would save you money</p>

<p>i had the same question last month during calso. i went to the financial aid office and some lady just looked at my financial aid package, did some calculations on her calculator, and told me i will get the full amount in grants. i would just call the financial aid office so they can look at ur profile. she didn’t explain to me how she determined that i will get all of it in grants though…so ima call back too this wk to verify. i already have insurance through my dad’s work (blue cross blue shield) which is way better than SHIP.</p>

<p>Medi-Cal, despite its bureaucracy, has always taken care of my family in terms of getting good treatment and paying bills. So I didn’t see a need for SHIP last year and waived out of it. My financial aid package didn’t change (I got mostly grants and some loans). If you got loans, waiving SHIP means you don’t have to accept and later pay that X amount in loans. If it is grant money that pays for SHIP, it’ll just get relocated toward your tuition or whatever (which it probably did for me).</p>

<p>so considering a very low efc, say as low as 0, chances are that SHIP isn’t covered by loans at all? so theres technically no harm in keeping ship?</p>

<p>No, there is no harm in keeping it, but why pay for something you don’t need? If your cost of attendance goes down (the cost of attendance includes the SHIP fee), then perhaps you won’t need as much in loans…</p>

Ok ive gone nuts over this. I have medicare. I am also covered mainly by grants. If I waive ship I get less grant money. So you might as well keep SHIP to have extra coverage.

If you’re receiving a grant that will cover the cost of SHIP, then take it. It will be so much easier to access medical care if you can just go to the Tang Center. Otherwise you would have the extra hurdle of looking for a local provider that is accepting new Medicare patients, and then having to get to that office.

Actually, @LVKris , all students can go to the Tang Center whether or not they have SHIP, and for many services, both the SHIP and non-SHIP student pay the same price. AFTER an initial consultation at Tang is when the student on Medicare might consider going to an in-network doctor if waiving SHIP. Here’s a list of sample fees for SHIP and non-SHIP: https://uhs.berkeley.edu/medical/sample-fees.

Just realized that this is a very old thread; the OP has probably graduated and moved on…

I was responding to the new poster from #6.

Sorry I wasn’t clear in my response. Yes, all students can use the Tang Center. The fees for routine types of care are not crazy high even without SHIP.

I simply meant to emphasize the convenience of the Tang Center over any other local option when the cost is the same.

I know that both my kids hated negotiating the health care maze when they were students. Any plan that makes getting health care less of a PITA should be chosen!