Officials want better rates, coverage for students

By Gregory Childress

gchildress@hearldsun.com; 918-1046

CHAPEL HILL -- While the debate about a national health care plan rages in town halls across the nation, UNC system officials are exploring a plan to improve health care coverage for students by the start of the 2010 academic year.

Officials are seeking better rates and better coverage for the 16 campuses across the system. They believe it can be accomplished by leveraging the system's buying power to purchase a base-line health insurance plan to be used on all campuses.

"We're finally using our market muscle as a system," UNC system President Erksine Bowles said during a board of governors meeting last week.

Students are required to have health insurance on most campuses. They are required to purchase campus health insurance or demonstrate under the campuses' "hard waiver" policies that they already have health insurance, which is usually through their parents.

Already 13 schools have banded together to purchase student health insurance under a consortium.

But UNC system leaders want all 16 schools, including the three that are not part of the consortium -- Appalachian State, UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State -- to all join under one health care provider, with a "hard waiver" policy in place.

"Going 16 together gets a different response from the market place than one campus going alone," Bruce Mallette, senior associate vice president for academic and student affairs, said in an interview.

Currently, the student health insurance plans offered on campuses are wide-ranging in coverage and cost. Maximum benefits, for example, range from $5,000 to $250,000, and deductibles can cost students anywhere from $0-$250,000.

Establishing a basic health insurance plan for all campuses would help to bring equity to what is offered at the 16 schools.

"A parent might have a son at UNC Wilmington and a daughter at Appalachian State and not have similar coverage," Mallette said.

In addition to attempting to eliminate inequities in plans across the system, officials also want to make student health care plans more affordable.

A test Request For Proposal (RFP) showed that significant savings can be achieved by using the system's buying power to purchase student health insurance.

Under the test RFP, premiums for students ranged from $549 to $679. Currently, they range from a low of $380 at the UNC School of the Arts to $1,565 at UNC Chapel Hill. Yet some schools with higher premiums are getting fewer benefits than those that pay less.

"What we found is that it could have a significant, positive impact for all students by bringing in quality health care to all campuses," Mallette said. "You can see that the premiums are much more reasonable."

And reasonable, more affordable health insurance for those students who need it has become increasingly important on campuses as parents deal with layoffs and the loss of employee-sponsored health insurance, Mallette said.

He said the number of students who are asking for more money in their financial aid packages to pay for campus health insurance has increased substantially.

"Students used to be sitting on their parents' plans and they just don't have it anymore," Mallette said.