CSU Using Grant To Tell Students About State Insurance Exchange
California State University is using a $1.25 million federal grant to educate a quarter-million people across its 23 campuses about enrolling in health insurance coverage through Covered California, the Sacramento Bee reports (Cadelago, Sacramento Bee, 10/19).
Background
Obama administration officials say that about 2.6 million young, healthy individuals must enroll in state health insurance exchanges to help keep costs down for the overall pool of enrollees.
Nearly one-third of such individuals live in California, Florida and Texas (California Healthline, 7/25).
Unlike students at other universities, CSU students are not required to have health insurance in order to enroll in classes.
Walter Zelman -- leader of CSU's Covered California outreach campaign and chair of CSU-Los Angeles' Department of Health Science -- estimated that 30% of the university system's students are uninsured. Currently, CSU students' fees cover only basic care services through campus health centers.
Details of Outreach Campaign
CSU's outreach campaign is targeting:
- Students;
- Students' families;
- Part-time staff; and
- Individuals who apply to the university but do not enroll in classes.
Outreach efforts include:
- Emails;
- Information booths on campuses;
- Five-minute classroom presentations; and
- A series of open forums.
The grant is set to expire March 31, 2014 after reaching a quarter-million people. However, campaign officials believe they can education four times that number of individuals.
Zelman said that students "don't want to roll the dice with their health. They just in most cases cannot afford" health insurance offered outside of the exchange.
Peter Lee -- executive director of Covered California -- said that students have significant incentive to sign up for coverage because they tend to qualify for large subsidies (Sacramento Bee, 10/19).
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