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Supporters of student health insurance plans who saw provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act threatening the plans were reassured Wednesday in a meeting with President Obama’s chief health care deputy. Representatives of the American College Health Association, the National Association of College and University Business Officers, College and University Professional Association for Human Resources and the six presidential higher education associations met Wednesday with Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform, to share their concerns. They worry that student plans -- currently defined as "limited duration," a category that exempts the plans from being part of the individual market -- would under the new law become too expensive for colleges and universities to offer.
One person in the room for the meeting, Steven Bloom, assistant director of government and public affairs at the American Council on Education, said that DeParle assured the group that the absence of language making clear that the plans could continue to operate just as they do today was "not intentional." The Obama administration has emphasized that "if you like the insurance you have, you get to keep it," Bloom said, "and they view student insurance as part of that.... It's just fallen through the cracks."
College health advocates first met with Congressional aides last fall to discuss this same concern, but language supporting student health insurance plans never made it into the final bill. Now that the bill has been passed and legislation is all but frozen on Capitol Hill, Bloom and his peers expect that a fix will come through regulations.
