Senator Wants Students Insured

A state senator wants Idaho’s colleges and universities to require students to have private health insurance as a condition of enrollment.

Sen. Robert Lee, R-Rexburg, wrote in a letter to the schools that requiring students to carry their own insurance could save the state’s Medicaid program a lot of money. He said he wrote the letter at the request of Senate Health and Welfare Chairman Grant Ipsen, R-Boise,

“We want people to show more personal responsibility,” Lee said. “Some students are just asking for welfare when they could have private insurance.”

The problem is particularly evident in the Pregnant Women and Children component of the Medicaid program, Lee said. Forty percent of the state’s births are paid for by Medicaid, which spent more than $26 million on the program in 1994.

Marj Sanderson, bureau chief of Medicaid systems and operations for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, said she was unsure how many of the program’s clients are college students. A questionnaire is going out to all women aged 16-27 to find out if they have private insurance. One of the questions on the survey will be whether the woman is enrolled in college.

Carol Grupp, director of human resources at the University of Idaho, said students already have options for insurance at the Moscow school.

Every student pays for basic accident insurance as part of their student fees, she said. That coverage now buys $5,000 worth of accident insurance and costs the students about $6.65 a year. The coverage and costs will increase next year to $7,000 and $7.50.

Grupp said the university does not force students to sign up for anything more. But foreign students attending the university on a visa are required by the federal government to have private insurance for themselves, their spouses and any dependents, she said.