Chris Banyas
Staff Writer
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare,” was signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, and has already had an effect on many Americans.
The Affordable Care Act aims to overhaul America’s health care system by making significant changes to the way insurance is handled.
Full-time college students who attend state schools in Idaho are required by the State Board of Education to hold insurance.
The insurance solution provided by the state is known as the Student Health Insurance Program, or SHIP, and is actually administered by a company called Ascension Benefits and Insurance Solutions.
Over the past few years, enrollment in the SHIP at Idaho State University has dropped, while the costs have continued to rise.
As of the 2011 fall semester, there were 3,088 students enrolled paying $534 for that semester and $736 for the spring semester, which included coverage over the summer.
The 2012 fall semester saw the number of enrollees fall to 2,251 and the cost jump to $925 per semester. The 2013 fall semester saw 1,975 enrolled at a cost of $1,014 per semester.
There are many potential causes for the drastic fluctuation in enrollment numbers, while the jump in cost is due in large part to the ACA.
As part of the ACA, children were able to stay on their parent’s plans until the age of 26. The overall enrollment at ISU also fluctuated during this time.
The SHIP was required to add many different things to the plan dealing with overall wellness and prevention in order to adhere to the new ACA guidelines.
“We’ve had a lot of changes already because starting in 2011 and 2012 we kind of had to change our program as we went on to include the preventative stuff that we had to cover and the contraceptives that we had to cover because we weren’t covering a lot of that before,” said Crystal Ross, business operations manager for the Student Health Center.
Prescription benefits were not offered by the SHIP until the ACA came into effect.
The cost of the SHIP for the 2014 year has yet to be determined, but should be available sometime in February.
“We are contracted with the State of Idaho. We have BSU, LCSC, us and Eastern Idaho Technical College are in a consortium,” said Ross. “So we bidded out trying to find the best agent, broker. We did; their job is to find us the best plans.”
Among the stated goals of the ACA are cheaper and better quality coverage, lowering the rate of uninsured individuals and eliminating pre-existing-conditions from the equation.
As of January 2014, every adult will be required to hold insurance, or be penalized by way of a tax which will start out at $95 per adult or 1 percent of total household income.
This tax will raise to $325 per adult or 2 percent of total household income in 2015 and $695 per adult or 2.5 percent of total household income in 2016.
The ACA also aims to create an insurance exchange to help people find the best insurance for their needs.
