Daily Skiff

September 24th, 2008

Student Health Insurance: Are you covered?

In 2006 The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that student health insurance was not so much a benefit as a burden. The deductible for TCU’s health insurance is $250. This means that a student has to pay for $250 in medical services befrore receiving medical benefits. Another issue is that the coverage is the minimum which leaves the insured paying what seems to be the majority of the medical bills. This seems to defeat the purpose of getting health insurance. If you’re fortunate enough to be insured by another carrier such as your parents or your place of employment offers health insurance then you are not as harshly affected as those who only have health insurance provided by their school.

Recently, a friend of mine told me she had seen her therapist who was kind enough to see her for a session. Afterwards, her therapist told her that the health insurance had only paid for half of her sessions and that she now owed at least $500 in medical bills. This only added to her anxiety. What’s a person to do about health insurance when you are a full-time student? If you are like my friend you’re not in a position to purchase your own insurance and after a certain age your parents aren’t allowed to put you on their insurance anymore.

In my friend’s case her part-time job doesn’t offer benefits. Since she has coverage through school she assumed she was covered when she started seeing her therapist. But it seems even though you are covered you are not fully covered. According to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Web site, more than eight in ten of the uninsured people are in low- or moderate-income families. As most students have a low or moderate income this would lump them with the group of uninsured.

The affordability of health care debate has been going on for some time and in this current election year that seems to be an issue at the forefront. As the debate goes on there is hope for improvement. So take my advice low coverage is better than no coverage. Take advantage of your student health insurance and make an effort to understand how it will best benefit you. Hopefully that will be enough to keep you from having scary medical bills sent to you.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 at 10:33 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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