Most students know that this year tuition at UNC-Chapel Hill increased $695 or 9.9 percent. Do you think many students could tell you how much the premium on their student health insurance increased over the past year? According to an article in yesterday’s Daily Tar Heel, costs for student health insurance increased a whopping 54 percent. Semester premiums rose from $460.50 to $709.
Health experts have been predicting Obamacare would dramatically boost costs for some time (see here and here). Why the increase? Most colleges offer students a health plan which the low health risks of most students. Most plans are “limited-benefit” plan which cover health expenses up to a defined cap, such as $10,000. Obamacare prohibits capping insurance payouts which has led to skyrocketing premiums. Did you know that tucked away in the Affordable Health Care Act are provisions which also nationalize the student loan industry? Subsidies to private lenders are ended and the federal government is put in charge of administering federally backed student loans.
In January of this year, President Obama made a speech at the University of Michigan where he blasted colleges for ever-rising tuition. Obama even went so far as to say, colleges who don’t hold the line on tuition may face the loss of federal financial aid.
Decades ago when federal financial aid was developed it was sold as a means of keeping college affordable for all Americans. Forty years later it’s fair to ask: Has it worked?
Now the federal government wants to do for healthcare what it did for college costs ; all in the name of making it “more affordable.”
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