Idan Ivri Ivri is a third-year political
science student just giving his opinion. E-mail your opinion to him
at [email protected].
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The university made both right decisions and wrong ones in its
new mandatory student health plan. Health insurance is always
complicated, but too much student money is at stake to ignore the
issue.
The Medical Insurance Plan was replaced this year by the Student
Health Insurance Plan. As of Fall 2001, the university mandated
that all UCLA students must be covered either by SHIP or a similar
type of health insurance.
First, how the university was correct: mandatory insurance in
itself is not a bad thing. A friend of mine who didn’t have
insurance once hurt his knee and waited months before he could
afford surgery.
I compared private health insurance rates for a college-aged
person with the SHIP rates, and they are reasonable. SHIP costs
$535 per year for the basic undergraduate plan (USHIP) and $720 per
year for the corresponding graduate student plan (GSHIP). The
monthly payment is competitive with private plans and the
deductible is low.
UCLA made more than a few bad decisions as part of this new
mandate, though. First of all, SHIP was automatically activated for
all students and billed to our accounts last fall. All students
were affected, including those already covered by an individual,
workplace or parent’s health insurance plan. Anyone with
private health coverage would have to know how and when to petition
out of SHIP or pay an extra $535 per year for no reason.
The university acted inappropriately by automatically activating
the plan for all students, despite the fact that they mailed some
notification over the summer. Sending students a letter informing
us that we will be billed for a new service without our written
consent is wrong. Normally (and rightly), a person signs up for a
service before paying for it. Private companies are not allowed to
sign up customers without asking and then send them a bill. The
university should not have this privilege either.
Since the deadline for mandatory coverage was Fall 2001, the
university should have sent warnings to all students years ahead of
time and asked us to send proof of private insurance. When the
deadline was approaching, UCLA should have sent all students (who
hadn’t sent proof of insurance) a written consent form for
SHIP requiring a signature.
The ethical approach is to mail all students consent forms that
require a response so the university knows that the students are
aware of new fees before they’re charged. With all (or even
most) of such forms returned, UCLA could have honestly said that
its students know what they are paying for. But UCLA didn’t
take this approach.
The university’s second wrong decision was the
requirements to opt out of SHIP once a student realizes he or she
is double covered. In order to waive SHIP, a student have must
petitioned online between Sept. 1-20 and have a particular type of
private insurance. The private insurance plan must be issued by a
United States company, provide a minimum of $100,000 of lifetime
benefits, and include less than $3,000 of out-of-pocket expenses in
the deductible and co-insurance. This sounds complicated, but it
basically means the following:
International students with government insurance from their home
country can’t waive SHIP.
Students with international travel insurance can’t waive
SHIP.
All students with health plans that charge very small monthly
payments (the kind we’re most likely to afford) can’t
waive SHIP because the out-of-pocket expenses are usually over
$3,000.
Even if the private plan meets the needs of the student, UCLA
mandates SHIP in the above cases. That mandate is wrong.
The university must realize that there are many students who
didn’t understand that they could be charged for SHIP without
signing anything.
There are many international students with foreign insurance,
and many with $3,000-plus co-payment plans. Between all these
people, a lot of money is going to the university that should be
staying with the students.
In the future, UCLA should weaken the rules to waive SHIP and
send a waiver along with a SHIP agreement contract to all students
long before Fall quarter.