New York Attorney General: Some college health plans violate state regulations

The New York Times: An investigation by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office into health insurance plans offered to college students found that most plans "pay out far less in benefits than they collect in premiums," sometimes in violation of state regulations. "Many plans also do not cover common situations that affect students, including injuries sustained in suicide attempts or while drunk. And some colleges force students to buy college-sponsored coverage even if they are enrolled in a parent's plan or covered by Medicaid."

The recently passed health reform law might affect this sector of the industry, however, as "the need for students to have their own insurance may be decreasing, because the federal health care bill signed into law last month will allow parents, starting in September, to keep children on their plans until the children are 26. ... One insurer, Combined Insurance, disputed the data collected by Mr. Cuomo's office. But the insurer declined to specify what it claimed was wrong" (Hakim, 4/8).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.