A number of Tufts students who are members of the inter-collegiate Student Health Organizing Coalition (SHOC) last Thursday testified at the state legislature on behalf of a bill proposing an overhaul of the student health insurance system.
Bill S.609 proposes a disintegration of the current health care system for students in the state, according to Kimberly Haddad, senior health policy advisor for State Sen. Richard Moore (D-Uxbridge), who originally filed the bill in January.
It eliminates the requirement that students participate in the Qualifying Students Health Insurance Program (QSHIP), Haddad told the Daily. The QSHIP is a Massachusetts regulation that developed following a 1989 law that made health insurance mandatory for all students enrolled in an institute of higher education in the state.
The bill replaces this requirement with the notation that students carry health insurance that meets a baseline standard of "creditable coverage."
The bill does not relinquish a Massachusetts' requirement that students have health insurance, but it calls for a restructuring of health insurance options made available for students. Haddad stressed, though, that the bill remains in preliminary stages and that Moore's office is currently researching feasible alternatives to the current health insurance program for students.
The bill is part of an ongoing effort to reform student health care in Massachusetts following the release of the Student Health Program Baseline Report, which revealed inflated profit margins for student insurance plans and reported that insurance companies spend less money on medical costs in student plans as compared with the industry average.
SHOC's main objective is to find a new means of providing student health insurance with more benefits without increasing premiums. A possibility which SHOC supports is to create a student health insurance option through the Health Connector, a state agency which offers inexpensive health insurance options.
Facing a panel of legislators, five Tufts students spoke at the hearing on their personal experiences within the health care system, according to senior Elisabeth Rodman, a SHOC member.
As part of its testimony, SHOC presented the senators with a compilation of 70 written student testimonies. Thirty students who did not testify were also present at the hearing as supporters of the bill, according to SHOC organizer Vivian Haime, a junior.
In addition to student testimony, representatives of several non-governmental organizations and two individuals unaffiliated with SHOC testified on behalf of the bill, according to Rodman.
"The hearing went really well, and there's certainly the possibility of change in student health insurance in the future," Rodman said.
She noted that SHOC's efforts have sparked an interest outside the group as well.
"There was a student who came to testify on her own with no relation to us, so clearly the word is getting out that people should speak out if they're not satisfied with their health insurance."
One opponent of the bill, Bill Devine, also testified. Devine is the president of University Health Plans Inc., an insurance brokerage company that Rodman said had a vested interest in student health care insurance plans.
Rodman added that Devine's testimony ended up backfiring when senators asked him questions.
She recounted an instance when one state senator asked Devine if he would buy the insurance plan that he sells to customers.
"He said no," Rodman said. "Our only opponent admitted that the product he sells is inadequate."
Senators have until March to vote on the bill. Rodman stated that there is a possibility that a decision will be made sooner with national health care reform so prominent on the political landscape.
Universities also begin the process of selecting their health care plans for the upcoming academic year in January, so a decision needs to be made before then if the goal is to affect next year's students, according to Rodman.
But the feasibility of this goal remains in question, according to Haddad.
"Even the lowest benefit option for the Connector has a higher premium than the lower QSHIP plan," she said. "The lowest plan in the Connector is at least $600 more for a premium than the lowest QSHIP price."
Haddad emphasized that a rise in premium would make insurance plans more cost-prohibitive to students. There is, however, the possibility of having universities form state or regional consortiums through which the risk pool can be consolidated, helping to prevent increases in premium prices.
