Student health centers still free, Perry vetoes bill

Jul 1 2009 - 4:03pm | Sajen Claxton-Hernandez

A veto by Gov. Rick Perry kept visits to the Student Health Center free of charge.

House Bill 103 was almost unanimously approved by both the Texas House and Senate before Perry vetoed it three days before deadline.

If passed, the bill would have required Texas universities with more than 20,000 students to accept and bill private insurance beginning this fall.

Fred Brown, author of HB 103, argued the bill would save taxpayers millions of dollars by giving non-profit health centers the ability to generate revenue by billing insurance companies.

A spokesperson for Perry said the intentions of the bill were good, but possible unforeseen costs could unjustifiably cause families and students to pay more. School officials estimated the cost of hiring new personnel to coordinate and bill insurance would be passed along to students.

“I think it’s kind of baffling,” said James Boyle, president of College Parents of America, a national membership association with members in all 50 states. “It is a student and family-friendly bill because it allows students already covered on health insurance from their parents’ employer sponsor plan to be able to use that insurance at the campus health center.”

Boyle said students covered in their parents’ insurance plan are paying double because the current policy allows for free office visits, but still charges out-of-pocket costs for extra services such as lab tests and X-rays.

He said parents and students are paying for insurance plus additional health-care fees because the university does not allow for their plan to go in-network.

Emilio Carranco, director of the Texas State Student Health Center, said going in-network at a major university is not easy because students come from all over the word and are covered by hundreds of different insurance plans. He said Texas State would not have been in-network with any of the plans by the time the bill went into effect.

“It’s just impossible for a student health center to be able to get in-network with all of those plans,” Carranco said.

Carranco said since most students would be out of network, they would have to pay more money out-of-pocket because of deductibles and added charges.

“If we flip the switch (to a private insurance model), I would have to implement office visit charges,” Carranco said. “I would have to raise all my charges in order to bill insurance and be able to get maximum reimbursement.”

Carranco said Texas State students pay a $53 medical service fee every semester allowing unlimited access to the health center.

Approximately 50 percent of Texas State students use the Student Health Center annually, according to their practice management system report from January 2008 to November 2008. Sixty percent of those paid nothing for their visit. Nineteen percent paid $20 or less. Two percent paid more than $100 for their visit.

He commented on the argument of how the bill would save millions in tax dollars.

“(Student health centers) are not wasting taxpayer dollars because we aren’t getting taxpayer dollars,” Carranco said.
Officials from all nine of the schools affected reported their student health centers were funded by tuition fees and not by the government.

Carranco said the health center is completely separate from taxpayers dollars because they get 75 percent of their funds from the medical fee, and the 25 percent from extra service charges such as lab tests and X-rays.

Both Carranco and Perry are not completely opposed to accepting private insurance.

Carranco said they look to find a way to integrate insurance billing every year, but have not yet found a way that would not increase student’s health-care costs.

“If the bill passed, the out of network students would be paying increased costs out-of-pocket for a few years until the university had time to go in-network with more insurance plans,” he said. “At that point in time, it may be beneficial for students.”

Perry’s spokesperson said the decision to veto was made with concerns for university students and their families.

Perry recommended the lieutenant governor and speaker of the house to conduct an interim study to review this issue.

“It’s something we need to look into a bit more before we can enact a sweeping reform like that,” said Perry’s spokesperson.

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