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Anyone understand the logic behind college medical insurance?

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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 09:34 AM
Original message
Anyone understand the logic behind college medical insurance?
What a rip off! $800+ for insurance not accepted by some doctors. Limited services, yet $800 comes out of your Pell Grant or you must pay up front.

Who sets the standards for this? I can't find anything on line except lists of various college requirements. Nothing about which insurance company students are enrolled with.

In Massachusetts, they do not accept Commonwealth Care. Mr Gray gets medical from the VA plus Medicare. Still, the school took $800 for insurance coverage. WTF?
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donco6 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 09:35 AM
Response to Original message
1. It sounds more like they're charging you a fee to run the health clinic.
Doesn't really sound like insurance to me.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 09:37 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. Every college does it, too.
Yet no one talks about it.
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donco6 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 09:43 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. Colleges seem to operate more and more like quasi private inst.
In fact, there's talk here in Colorado of making the Univ. of Colorado/Boulder private. They're facing massive cuts next year and don't know what they're going to do.
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tinkerbell41 Donating Member (722 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 09:38 AM
Response to Original message
3. I have no idea.
My child's school requires this also. I didn't have to take it this year. But I don't understand. So you can be uninsured when school is out, and have catastrophic things happen, but when you are in school, you must be covered?
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Oregone Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 09:44 AM
Response to Original message
5. I think my school pretty much had universal care for students
Doctors on salary, unlimited service, free services and medicine. Yeah, it came out of tuition, but it was probably an efficient way to pay for it.

Thats what some rich kids get (I wasn't one of them).
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baldguy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 09:53 AM
Response to Original message
6. Same as for all other health insurance - it generates money for the insurance companies.
The actual health care - as always - is secondary.
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geckosfeet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 09:54 AM
Response to Original message
7. Jaysus. When I was in school,,,, (long pause),,, health ins was included in your tuition.
There was a clinic on campus staffed 24x7 by a nurse. Doctors visited weekly.
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stray cat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 10:12 AM
Response to Reply #7
11. so clearly it wasn't free - of course students paid for it
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geckosfeet Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 11:10 AM
Response to Reply #11
12. Correct. But if you were a student you could just walk in anytime. And tuition
for a NYS school was low by any standard.
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Aragorn Donating Member (784 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 09:56 AM
Response to Original message
8. contract law
like a pre-nup. I agree it's crazy )I'm a retired physician with 2 kids in college) but if your question is "how are they allowed to rip us off like this?" that's the answer.

All insurance is contract law. If you sign the contract, they will follow the fine print. After all, they wrote it.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 11:46 AM
Response to Reply #8
13. Thing is, Mr Gray signed nothing
They take $800 and if you drop out, you get nothing. At our school, $800 could be used for 6 credits. I still don't know who gets that money. Where does it go and why are some doctors not accepting it?
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Davis_X_Machina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 10:03 AM
Response to Original message
9. My son's school offers pretty good BC/BS
....but not as good as the family's BC/BS, for about a grand a year. Their optical and dental is better than anything I can get, so we buy that for him.

If you don't provide evidence for coverage through some other means -- and VA and Medicare both apply -- they enroll you in that and add it to your bill.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 11:47 AM
Response to Reply #9
14. There is the problem right there.
Mr Gray has two means of medical coverage, waived his insurance with the school and they still took $800.
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Davis_X_Machina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 02:06 PM
Response to Reply #14
18. I doubt it all goes to run the infirmary...
...in many states it takes the legislature to raise tuition, but the school can raise fees on their own, so they raise a particular fee, and then move the money around inside the university. My son's got a swinging 'materials fee' in an architecture program that I know more than covers what a student uses.

Sounds like that's what they're doing.
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stray cat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 10:11 AM
Response to Original message
10. It is much better for college students to go uninsured and not have health services on campus
Edited on Sun Nov-01-09 10:15 AM by stray cat
if they need to see a doctor they can call a taxi to get to one. Seriously - a college age nonsmoking female was quoted $500/month for a decent health insurance plan - and almost no health insurance is accepted by all doctors. The breaking news appears to be that health care isn't free.

I pay 4000 a year for my grad students to be covered through a school policy which is still inexpensive compared to free market for what they get. I'm glad they get health insurance myself and I am glad its not free market prices.
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graywarrior Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 11:49 AM
Response to Reply #10
15. I just need to understand who the coverage is with and why doctors do not accept it
I have to write an article for the school paper as part of my course, so I think I will investigate the health insurance issue and write about that.
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annabanana Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 12:20 PM
Response to Original message
16. We can opt-out of this if we have other, family insurance. I was
Edited on Sun Nov-01-09 12:20 PM by annabanana
glad it was there for after my eldest aged-out of our famly plan.

Now, of course, he is living dangerously. There better be a bill.
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kiva Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Nov-01-09 01:32 PM
Response to Original message
17. My guess is that this is specifically insurance,
not for the school clinic as some have suggested - you can verify that by checking his student fees to see if there's a charge for an on-campus facility. For this amount of money it's worth contacting the bursar's office to see if your husband can get a waiver since he has other insurance - they may not be able to help you, but should be able to direct you to someone who can.

Also a heads up about the student clinic - a women I know who was on Medicare and going to UNLV was told by the student clinic that they would not/could not see her because she was on Medicare, even though she paid the student fee for the clinic.
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