College students are about to wake up to the fact that there is a huge price they will have to pay under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. For them, ObamaCare will be anything but affordable.
Consider the situation in New Jersey, the only state that currently requires all college students to have healthcare coverage. This has always been a bare-bones plan costing $100-$600 per year. The new healthcare regulations will force these plans to be phased out, as the mandated coverage under ObamaCare will cause the premiums to rise from a few hundred dollars to $1,700 per year.
Under PPACA, students could choose to pay a small tax instead, starting in 2014. But that will not help if state law still requires coverage.
Now New Jersey Democrat Assemblywoman Celeste Riley is sponsoring a bill to eliminate New Jersey’s mandatory health insurance for college students. College students are getting an object lesson in progressivism. They will learn that their choices are being obliterated when it comes to what must be included in their plans.
How Obamacare Limits Choices
The reason these plans are becoming unaffordable is the government edict that a college plan must cover all sorts of new things. These include mental health benefits, substance and chemical abuse treatments, all preexisting conditions, pregnancy, wellness/preventative care visits, contraception, and abortions.
This outlaws plans like Christian Care Medi-Share, a faith-based health-sharing ministry whose members are exempt from ObamaCare. All Medi-Share enrollees must sign a pledge that they will avoid tobacco, illegal drugs, and excessive alcohol. Any college student can have a remarkably inexpensive plan costing as little as $50/month for comprehensive sharing of bills up to $1 million.
This is not bare-bones, but real help when needed most. It is a choice individuals ought to be able to make, a plan that enables them to benefit when they can choose to behave responsibly in a manner that enhances their health and reduces their chances of needing high-cost care. But New Jersey colleges will not be allowed to accept this method of taking personal responsibility, only the Obama way.
Lesson in Liberty
New Jersey Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone recently stated young people have to buy costly ObamaCare plans in order to provide a subsidy to older and less healthy people. So here it is, college students, a valuable civics lesson your college professors never made clear.
Faced with the specter of students dropping out of college because they can’t afford the required health coverage, Democrats are now beginning to recognize the ObamaCare mandate for young people might not have been a good idea.
PPACA was deceptive from the start. We can only hope bright students will challenge it before it is too late. Perhaps they will learn a lesson in liberty and work to restore the principles and values that made our country great
Dr. Alieta Eck, MD, ([email protected]) writes from New Jersey.
