Present quandary, unable to continue with student health insurance due to summer internship. We have been purchasing health insurance via the accredited University health insurance. Now we are told that if the recipient of the internship is non credited (at least 6 credit hrs) than the insurance does not apply. Our daughter will be eligible for reinstatement in September back in school, which leaves us without coverage for the summer. We cannot add her to our insurance since the advent of Obama care has made it prohibitive financially plus we would be committed for the full year. Now looking at short term insurance, the company with the internship requires 120+ days of work which would not be applicable to a summer internship, so that leaves us out.
Anyone else with this problem?
Northeastern health plan covers summers, coops, international study, etc. You should double check on the one your child is enrolled in - this gap in coverage does not make sense.
What does your child do for summer health insurance if she’s not in an internship?
Yes, at my child’s school, as well, as long as the student is enrolled in 6 hours in fall and spring semesters, and payment is continued, the student has insurance thru the summer. Otherwise, every student not taking summer classes would have this issue, internship or not. We have had the issue that the student insurance is very locally based and the close hospitals are not in network with any national insurers. So, if anything happens during the summer, she is out of network. I am now thinking about putting her on my husband’s as well as the schools just to have her covered in network in 2 different areas.
I don’t know why you’re blaming the problems on “Obamacare” or the school policies. The fact that much school insurance does not cover summers if not spent at the school is something that nearly all families think about and deal with, either by waiving university coverage and continuing on the family plan if appropriate, or double-covering.
This has nothing to do with “ObamaCare.” Every college and boarding school I know of requires resident students to provide evidence of health coverage. That was true before Barack Obama was elected President. Colleges are less strict with students who live off-campus, in my experience. I pay an unconscionable amount, for now, to keep a National Access plan for my sons, for this very reason.
https://www.capbluecross.com/wps/wcm/connect/CBC-Public/CBC/Products/IndividualShortTerm/Home
check into short term policies
Take an evening class during the summer (or a summer session before or after the internship starts) to keep the credit hours required.
I’ve never heard of an internship which runs from Mid-May (when exams end) to late August (when classes begin). Surely there is time to squeeze in both an internship and enough credit hours to keep the insurance in place.
OR- apply for credit to the Academic Dean for the internship.
www.naceweb.org/s04012015/healthcare-coverage-under-affordable-care-act.aspx are the legal issues :coverage for Interns under the affordable care Act. Thing have gotten muddier since Obama, for ourselves our premiums (already high) has increased slightly over the years but our deductible is now $6500 per person vs. $1500., so we are not adding our child to our insurance. At the present time it has taken the schools insurance company two weeks to give us an answer, (mainly due to ACA) and over the course of one year, they have changed the requirements to 6 credit hours from 3 hrs. I am in the process of checking for short term health insurance, unfortunately we will not have any pricing until next year.
There seems to be some misunderstanding on the following:
- Prior to ACA- we never had to show proof to the University of Health insurance, although we have always maintained insurance for our kids.
2)" I’ve never heard of an internship which runs from Mid-May (when exams end) to late August (when classes begin)." . Every one of her internships provided a window of one to two weeks after finals and one week prior to classes starting. This included Intel, TI, Honeywell and a few other large corporations. - “Surely there is time to squeeze in both an internship and enough credit hours to keep the insurance in place.” how do you manage to work a 40hr work week and go to school for 6 credits probably in another state with courses for a BS Mathematics and BS EE and maintain a 3.8 GPA?
My first entered college in 2002 (yikes), well before Obama Care, and we needed to show proof of health insurance AND verify that we would pay out of pocket if our kid got services from an out of network provider which would not take our insurance. College encouraged us to buy their insurance- we declined. But this was over a decade ago.
Does the college offer virtual learning? Can your kid get Gen Ed classes out of the way (not an engineering class) by taking it online, maintaining the requisite credit hours, which keeps the insurance in force???
Assuming that the internship is an above-board paid internship at a legitimate employer, can she get the insurance through the employer?
But - @blossom - if the student has to enroll in 6 credit hours to keep the insurance…wouldn’t the tuition for the six credit hours be even more expensive than just purchasing some short term insurance?
Sounds like there is no cheap way out of this, and sounds like any $$ earned at the internship might be consumed by the cost of health insurance. I admit, I have no idea what I’m talking about on this issue and have no answers here, just trying to follow the advice in the thread…
@mark2m - perhaps it’s time to ditch the school insurance and just add your D to your health coverage. Yes, the deductible is high, but if she doesn’t use it and stays healthy, the deductible for her will never be triggered; you will pay nothing but the added premium, which for young adults is usually pretty low.
If she does need it/use it, then I guess you will pay…and keep in mind that if she faces a true emergency, the ER near the school will be covered even if it is not in the network (I think) no matter where she is at school, and no matter where you live. It’s the routine care that requires her to go home and get “in network” care.
@blossom: my D’s highly paid internship last summer went from May 8 - August 26. And a friend of hers (same school) also had an internship that went through August 28. This is not unusual at all.
Both my Ds are under our family health plan. We provided adequate proof of insurance and were able to get a waiver from the university’s student plan, which, by the way, would cover them for an entire year. August to August.
Here are some possibilities:
- Add her to your family plan. This is the option my family has chosen for our D who attends college 600 miles away from home. We reasoned that she will use the college's health service for routine care (sore throat, minor respiratory illness, etc.) and if she has a true emergency that requires an ER, insurance covers her. If she ever needed scheduled diagnostic procedures like an endoscopy, we would schedule that for a time she's home. I can think of very, very few times she would need nonemergency healthcare at college that she cannot get at her college health service.
- Buy her an individual plan that is a catastrophic-only plan. A little-known provision in ACA is that individuals 30 and under can get an inexpensive plan that covers only catastrophic situations (cancer, multi-day hospital stays, etc.). This way she is covered for the big-ticket medical care that would otherwise wipe you out financially. But she would pay the out of pocket negotiated rate for routine care. However, when she is at school, wouldn't routine care at the university health service be free or very low cost?
That said, I also cannot understand how the college’s health plan doesn’t cover her during summers.
Do college health care plans cover students who are doing summer internships in other states, or in areas outside of the college coverage area? Or are they largely localized like most health care plans?
Be careful of short term insurance as it may not qualify as minimum essential coverage under Obamacare and you could end up paying a penalty at tax time. I would call the college insurance company and speak directly to a representative there. You may find that they will cover your daughter in the summer as long as she has continually been insured with the student plan for the Fall and Spring semesters.
Both of my kids’ college plans, two different states, cover the summer months with the spring premium. It’s not optional, if you buy the spring term, it is from Jan through Aug.
It has always been the case that school insurance only covers during the year, nothing new there. That is one reason we insure D2 through an individual Blue Cross Blue Shield plan (purchased on our state exchange, but we could buy directly from our state of residence BCBS). We like BCBS because it has provided at home and college, and would at pretty much any summer location. Once you figure out your summer solution, you might see if you can just do 1st semester with the school an next fall, then switch her to a year round individual plan. Our price is pretty reasonable ($192/ month for a platinum level plan).
What school?