Bowdoin's student health insurance program faces drastic changes in the near future.
Beginning in the 2005-2006 academic year, students who can prove they are covered by insurance that the College considers adequate will be able to "'opt-out' of the Bowdoin plan," according to a statement from the Office of Communications and Public Affairs released Thursday.
Students who do not have the required coverage will have to buy one of the two policies Bowdoin will offer. The first has a coverage cap of $50,000, while the other has a coverage cap of $250,000.
The Office of the Dean of Students Affairs is not disclosing the yearly fee of either plan.
The Student Aid Office will provide assistance to those required to buy an insurance plan but unable to afford it.
The new plan differs significantly from the College's current requirement that all students, regardless of their personal health coverage, must enroll in Bowdoin's health plan and pay a "health fee" on top of tuition. This year the fee was $357, insuring all students for medical costs of up to $10,000.
Senior Associate Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster estimates that the change in policy will allow the 65 to 70 percent of students with personal coverage deemed sufficient by Bowdoin to forgo paying the currently mandatory yearly "health fee." Be this as it may, with this new plan, Foster allowed that "there will be cost for some people."
In order to "opt-out" of the new plan, students' personal insurance policies must meet specific, stringent guidelines set by the College. According to yesterday's press release, students' personal "coverage [must be] transferable to the state of Maine and provide access to local health care and mental health providers for routine and emergency services."
The school will insist on a hard waiver. This means that proof of a student's personal policy will be required from whoever is providing the insurance (the firm a parent works at, for example) as well as the student's family. The College will also demand a copy of the actual policy to ensure that it meets Bowdoin's minimum requirements for student medical coverage.
"On the flip-side, [students] will have to certify that they need our insurance," Foster said. That is, students who cannot provide proof of Bowdoin-approved insurance must provide proof of their need for Bowdoin's policy.
The reasons for the policy change are varied. According to Dr. Jeff Benson, Director of the Dudley Coe Health Center, "the biggest problem [with the current coverage plan] is the cap of $10,000."
Benson said that, "there were a number of instances where that cap was exceeded and people were just left high and dry."
Foster agreed with Benson but added that the new plan will unburden two-thirds of students of the cost of a "health fee"?a big advantage.
Another factor in the policy shift was an external review conducted last year, which concluded that a change to Bowdoin's health coverage would be beneficial.
Determining what the new plan would look like was not easy.
"The problem [was] to come up with something which serves most people...at the highest level that's reasonably affordable" Benson said.
The College will insist on $50,000 as the minimum amount of coverage students can have. Administration officials arrived at this figure by studying insurance claims from pervious years. They also looked at what Bowdoin's peer schools were doing.
The change in health coverage is not the elimination of a health coverage requirement, Foster said.
"We're not going to move away from requiring people to have insurance; what we're moving away from is requiring people to have our insurance," he said.
All things considered, Foster sees the new plan as a positive step forward. "As the person who oversees [healthcare policy at Bowdoin], I feel pretty good about it."
Benson was optimistic as well. "We're hoping this [new plan] will take care of virtually all, if not all, students," he said.