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FSU to be First to Require Heath Insurance

May 29th, 2007 by Mike Vasilinda

Beginning this fall, every new freshman at Florida State will be required to have health insurance. Students who don’t will have to buy a 14 hundred and 40 dollar a year policy before being admitted, as Mike Vasilinda tells us existing students will be grand fathered in, but the goal is for everyone to be insured.

Hear it here: Collegiate Coverage

When school starts August 24th, FSU will be the first and only public university in Florida to require all incoming freshmen and transfer students to have health insurance. Mary Colburn, the Vice President for Student Affairs says the goal is to eventually have everyone covered. “They think they are invincible and nothing will ever happen to them… they’re not going to get ill. So the example of an accident is the best one. This student was just riding his bicycle to class and ended up having 30 thousand dollars plus of hospital cost.”

FSU says only those students who really need insurance because they are sick are the ones buying it, driving up losses and making the cost prohibitive. FSU estimates that 10 percent of the incoming freshmen don’t have health insurance… but for grad students, that number goes to almost one in three.

Senior Alexis Alvarez of West Palm Beach is one of those ten percent. “You do not have health insurance?” we asked. “No.”

So we asked “How do you… I saw you coming out of the health center. How do you deal with medical expenses?” Alexis responded. “I hope not to get sick (laughter) and then if I do… call daddy.”

And like tuition, not everyone wants to be paying higher fees, including Phillip Weems of St. Petersburg “Shouldn’t that be a personal decision for the student?”, he asked.

Officials say the insurance requirement will help keep kids on their medications and prevent high medical bills from forcing some to drop out. The newly required policies will sell for 14 hundred and forty dollars and can be paid for with student aid or loans. A task force is meeting this week and may recommend the mandatory insurance requirement be adopted by all of the state universities.

Posted in Business, Education, Health, Insurance, State News | 3 Comments »

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