COLLEGE-SPONSORED
HEALTH INSURANCE FOR STUDENTS
Many
colleges, universities, graduate schools, professional schools and trade
schools offer a school-sponsored health insurance plan. Many schools require
that you enroll in the school-sponsored plan unless you are able to show that
you have comparable coverage from another source.
Effective
group health plan years beginning after September 23, 2010, if an
employer-sponsored health plan allows employees' children to enroll in
coverage, then the health plan must allow employees' adult children to enroll
as well as long as the adult child is not yet age 26. Some group health
insurance plans may also require that the adult child not be eligible for other
group health insurance coverage, but only before 2014.
This
extension of coverage will help cover one in three young adults, according to
White House documents.
FEDERAL
EMPLOYEES HEALTH BENEFIT PLAN (FEHBP)
In
addition to such public plans as Medicare and Medicaid, the federal government
also sponsors a health benefit plan for federal employees—the Federal Employees
Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). FEHBP provides health benefits to full-time
civilian employees. Active-duty service members, retired service members and
their dependents are covered through the Department of Defense Military Health
System (MHS). FEHBP is managed by the federal Office of Personnel Management.
"Portability"
of group coverage
Two
federal laws address the ability of individuals with employment-based health
insurance coverage to maintain coverage.
The
Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA) enables certain
individuals with employer-sponsored coverage to extend their coverage if
certain "qualifying events" would otherwise cause them to lose it.
Employers may require COBRA-qualified individuals to pay the full cost of
coverage, and coverage cannot be extended indefinitely. COBRA only applies to
firms with 20 or more employees, although some states also have
"mini-COBRA" laws that apply to small employers.
The
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) provides
for forms of both "group-to-group" and
"group-to-individual" portability. When an individual moves from one
employer's benefit plan to another's, the new plan must count coverage under
the old plan against any waiting period for pre-existing conditions, as long as
there is not a break in coverage of more than 63 days between the two plans.
When certain qualified individuals lose group coverage altogether, they must be
guaranteed access to some form of individual coverage. To qualify, they must
have at least 18 months of prior continuous coverage. The details of access and
the price of coverage are determined on a state-by-state basis.
Association
group health insurance
Regular
health insurance is sometimes available to members of associations.
Associations such as the American Bar Association offer health insurance to
their members,[not in citation given] using an established insurance company to
write the policies for a group plan.