Student health insurance caps lifted at all campuses
The University of California will lift limits on student health insurance after hearing objections from hundreds of students, including some with severe illnesses who had reached the maximum benefit and risked bankruptcy to pay their bills.
UC leaders also heard from Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, and nine other members of Congress in February, urging them to lift the insurance caps.
All 10 campus chancellors have unanimously agreed not only to lift the lifetime coverage caps but also to avoid raising students’ insurance premiums to help UC close a $57 million deficit resulting from miscalculations when the plan was created in 2010.
“I’m extremely excited,” said grad student Kenya Wheeler. “As someone who had to struggle to get access to lifesaving health care, and being barred from that due to the medical cap, I’m just ecstatic that future students won’t have that dilemma.”
Wheeler was going for his master’s in urban planning at UC Berkeley when he was stricken with a rare form of
brain cancer in 2011.
In less than a year, his medical bills approached UC Berkeley’s coverage limit of $400,000, a cap shared by all but two campuses, UC San Diego and UCLA, where students pay extra for higher limits. Wheeler’s drug costs also reached the $10,000 prescription cap in just three months.
He was one of 11 students who reached the insurance cap last year, while 150 tapped out their drug coverage, UC said.
As students realized the risks they faced — and as Wheeler spoke out, telling of his hasty marriage to get onto his girlfriend’s medical plan — they began pressuring UC in January to lift the caps. They signed petitions, held student forums and pleaded with the regents.
Such limits are already illegal under the Affordable Care Act, the sweeping federal health care law known as Obama care, which takes full effect on Jan. 1. But the new law doesn’t apply to “self-funded” college plans like UC’s, in which the university takes on the financial risk of medical claims.
In considering whether to voluntarily lift the caps, UC formed an advisory board of students and administrators earlier this year. Their recommendations went to an executive committee, whose recommendations went to the 10 UC chancellors, who met privately on May 1.
At least one chancellor’s mind was already made up.
“While students may reach the lifetime maximum infrequently, the impact can be devastating,” UC Berkeley’s Chancellor Robert Birgeneau wrote the executive committee in March urging them to recommend lifting the caps.
Birgeneau also said the caps interfered with recruitment because prospective graduate students were considering the caps when deciding whether to enroll.
At their meeting, the chancellors unanimously agreed to lift all caps, though students will have to pay higher premiums for the increased coverage.
A UC press release didn’t mention the higher premiums, emphasizing the benefits.
“These added benefits will provide students with enhanced access to care and less financial risk,” Lori Taylor, UC’s director of self-funded health plans, said in the statement.
Campuses will also be able to opt out of the plan and offer a new one. Only UC Berkeley has said it will do so. Some campuses will partially opt out, while others, including UCSF, will stay in the plan.
The chancellors also decided that the health plan’s poor financial state should not lead to higher premiums specifically to fill the $57 million hole. The deficit came about because actuaries set premium levels too low three years ago, said Brooke Converse, a UC spokeswoman.
Wheeler, meanwhile, is in remission. He’s making up the courses he missed and is working to help pass a bill making its way through the state Legislature, AB314 by Assemblyman Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, to let the state regulate college insurance plans.