Syracuse University’s student health care insurance plan will not be affected by Aetna — the provider of SU’s student health care insurance — scaling back its involvement with President Barack Obama’s health care law. 

Aetna, one of the largest health insurance providers in the United States, announced earlier this month that it would be pulling back its ties with the Affordable Care Act marketplace starting next year. This happened after many insurers complained about financial losses with the ACA marketplace.

Ben Domingo, director of Health Services at SU, said the university’s contract with Aetna Student Health, a Massachusetts-based insurance company, is binding so the cutbacks will not affect the plan.

“It’s not as if they’re going into bankruptcy,” Domingo said. “… There are some (people) even theorizing that it’s retaliation for the government trying to block (Aetna’s) merger. So it’s not going to affect this plan for sure.” 

He added that since Aetna is a global network that offers international coverage, colleges and universities want to contract with the company so they can cover all of their students, even the ones studying abroad. Aetna Student Health serves 200 higher education institutions and 500,000 students, according to its website. 

Starting this academic year, all full-time matriculated students at SU are required to have ACA-compliant health insurance. Students can choose to pay for the university’s health insurance plan provided by Aetna Student Health if they don’t have health insurance or if their health insurance does not meet the coverage requirements.

Students can also waive the university’s health insurance plan and use their own health insurance as long as it complies with the ACA regulations and provides in- or out-of-network coverage in the Syracuse area for more than just emergency care.

The deadline to enroll or waive the SU student health insurance plan is Sept. 6.

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Until a student’s insurance waiver is approved, he or she is billed $2,230 — the cost of the SU health insurance plan for one student for a full year. Once the waiver is approved, that money is taken off the student’s Bursar account.

Domingo said he wasn’t sure how many students have waived the SU health insurance and how many have paid for the university’s coverage. At the end of last year, though, about 94 percent of domestic students at SU had waived and about 20 percent of international students had waived.

But he said not all SU students were required to follow the health insurance requirement last year so he cannot predict what the numbers will be like for this academic year.

SU’s plan is a 90/10 platinum plan, which means effectively no matter where students are incurring their costs, the insurance is likely to cover almost 90 percent of it so they’ll be paying only 10 percent out of pocket, Domingo said.

“That’s unheard of at a rate of $2,230. A plan like this would cost you over $8,000 on the marketplace,” Domingo said. “But in the marketplace, you’re sharing a risk pool with older people, with sick people, people on chronic medications — not that you don’t have those in the college population, but it’s generally healthier. So it’s a wonderful offering.”

Last year, SU’s health insurance plan was a gold plan and not a platinum one. But after receiving feedback from students in focus groups, Domingo said the university decided to upgrade the plan to platinum.

In addition to student focus groups, Domingo said the university formed two previous committees, brought in two different consultants, benchmarked the health insurance plan against peer institutions and conducted a survey among parents of undergraduate students — all to vet decisions regarding the health insurance policy.

Domingo said a lot went into these decisions leading up to the health insurance requirement, and that it wasn’t something the university did impulsively. 

He added that he has received comments from SU community members on “all ends of the spectrum” about the university health insurance plan. 

“We have people who want to sign up for the health insurance and are happy that there is such a wonderful plan available that’s inexpensive,” Domingo said. “We’ve also had parents complain because they feel like we’re forcing them to spend additional money.”

But SU providing students with this health insurance plan could possibly be “the most altruistic thing (the university) is doing,” Domingo said. 

“You’re probably wondering why is that?” Domingo said. “Well, the $2,230 does not go into Syracuse University’s coffers. So when people say, ‘Oh you just want to charge us another fee.’ That’s not true. Syracuse University is not making a penny off of you buying the Aetna insurance.”

He added that the university health insurance plan is not a self-funded plan, meaning that all of the money for the student insurance plans goes to Aetna and not SU.

When details about the health insurance requirement were first announced, graduate students were one of the groups on the SU campus that had the most concerns about it.

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Can Aslan, the internal vice president of the Graduate Student Organization, said one of the biggest concerns for graduate students regarding the health insurance plan — back then and still today — was the cost. 

Even though the cost is lower than what is offered at other institutions — and much less than what is on the health insurance marketplace — Aslan said it was still a significant cost for graduate students who often live paycheck to paycheck.

For some international graduate students, the cost of the health insurance plan was almost the breaking point, said Patrick Neary, a current senator in GSO and the president at the time SU’s plan was announced.

International students, he said, have to prove to the State Department that they can pay for schooling so the added expense of the health insurance was a major issue.

For domestic graduate students, Neary said the health insurance requirement was less of an issue because they are already required to have some form of health insurance under the ACA. 

“As of right now, teaching assistants, research assistants and other graduate employees, who are benefits eligible, are allowed to be on the employee health insurance plan, which as far as the full annual premium cost is actually cheaper than the student plan and offers really nice coverage,” Neary said.

He added that the employee health insurance plan that these graduate employees are on is the same plan that the university offers to its faculty members.

There is an ongoing discussion by university officials to move graduate employees from the employee plan to the student plan, Neary said. Part of this has to do with IRS regulations that the university cannot control. 

On the one hand, moving graduate students from the employee plan to the student plan would put more people on the student plan and make it cheaper, Neary said, but on the other hand, the student plan offers less benefits than the employee plan.

In addition, SU has received pushback on the requirement that students’ insurance companies provide coverage in the Syracuse area, Domingo said. Some people are satisfied just having emergency or urgent care coverage with their insurance, but evidence has shown that people more often than not go to routine health services and see specialists or primary care physicians in the area they live in, he added. Therefore, he said, students need insurance that will help them cover those instances.

“The intent of the (health insurance) requirement is to prevent students from having insurmountable medical bills that would hinder their ability to pursue their education,” Domingo said.

Representatives from GSO have been in frequent communication with university officials about the health insurance requirement, Neary said, and are participating in the decision-making process. 

At the end of last semester, Neary said the GSO passed a resolution that said the organization would not sign off on substantial changes to the employee plan or benefits eligibility without a referendum of graduate employees of the university.

Overall, Neary said he and other graduate students do not think the university health insurance plan is “horrible,” but he said there are a lot of policy decisions that need to be worked out.

“The GSO is committed to supporting the fact that students should have health insurance and students should have good health insurance,” Neary said. “… We need to make sure that people are covered and if something happens to you, your education does not simply end, but you actually do have coverage and can continue your studies.”

Published on August 29, 2016 at 10:36 pm

Contact Sara: smswann@syr.edu | @saramswann