Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Obamacare endangers student health

Colleges and universities have traditionally provided low-cost limited health benefits to their students.  Obamacare may make this illegal.  For one, Obamacare requires "minimum essential coverage that will satisfy the individual mandate. (See ACA §1501(f)(1)(E))" and student plans may not meet this definition.  Another typically bureaucratic issue is that, for the student to avoid the Obamacare tax, he must have either group health insurance or individual health insurance and, according to the American Council on Education, school plans currently do not qualify as either.

The end result will likely be that schools carve out special exceptions so that they will be allowed to provide students with affordable coverage.  People wanting affordable coverage who are not students at these institutions will be left wanting.

MSNBC and Megan McArdle have more on this.

RELATED:  Sen. Max Baucus, one of the chief authors of Obamacare, said he hadn't read the bill before he voted for it.  Further he told constituents that reading it would be "a waste [of] my time."  This is particularly relevant to the plight of university health plans because some of the problem are simply sloppy writing in the Obamacare care law (known as ACA).  As the American Council on Education explains:
ACA does not use consistent language with respect to the application of the reforms. Instead, the act uses interchangeably the terms "health insurance coverage" and "insurance market." This distinction does not appear to have any policy basis but nonetheless is causing confusion in the SHP market, particularly with respect to the application of PHSA §§2701 (premium variation), 2702  (guaranteed availability), and 2703 (guaranteed renewability) as created by ACA.

PREVIOUSLY on Obamacare:
Preview of Obamacare: Doctors abandoning Medicare
The dawning of the reality of Obamacare
Consumers outsmart Massachusetts' version of Obamacare
Obamacare threatens high tech jobs
Obamacare and trillions of dollars of unfunded mandates
The fraud of Obamacare, as seen from the left
Pelosi: Pass Obamacare so artists can quit their day jobs
How many House Democrats would be vulnerable this fall because of Obamacare?
Britain's Obamacare: Hospital patient dies of thirst as nurses ignore his pleas for water
Nobel Laureate economist explains why socialized medicine always fails
Rep. Ryan explains the dishonesty of Obamacare economics

No comments:

Clicky Web Analytics