Does Your University Health Care Plan Cover Birth Control?

Last Friday I received this letter (after the jump) from a young woman at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who recently found out that her student health insurance, Consolidated Health Plans, does NOT cover birth control. This same insurance broker arranges coverage for 60 other colleges in the upper Northeast, including schools such as Brown, The New School, and Sarah Lawrence college, among others.

Take a look at the letter that this college student sent to her university administration about the policy and make sure you read the fine print in your own student health insurance plan. You can see the offending part of the Lehigh plan in this PDF, under Exclusions and Limitations, which says "No benefits will be paid for loss or expense caused by, contributed to, or resulting from: 16. Reproductive/infertility services including but limited to: birth control; family planning; fertility test; infertility (male or female), including any services or supplies rendered for the purpose or with the intent of inducing conception."

You too may need to contact your administration and student health insurance broker to protest similar restricitions.

(It should be noted that condoms, however, are issued for free at Lehigh College. So boys can use birth control, but girls can't?)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, Nov 11, 2009 at 1:06 AM
Subject: University Health Plans and women's reproductive rights

Dear Ms. Stewart,

I have just become aware of an indefensible stance taken by our very own Consolidated Health Plans, the broker for student insurance on campus: the student policy covers prescriptions EXCEPT for birth control. This surely cannot be a moral statement by the broker, because the very same policy pays for elective abortions. The decision not to pay for birth control on a university campus increases the risk of unwanted pregnancies, and thus increases the risk of more invasive procedures, like abortions. I am certain that this callous disregard for college students' reproductive options flourishes only because more people aren't aware of it--if they were, the public pressure would force a change in policy. But it gets worse. Let's face it: the average Lehigh undergraduate student comes from a family that is financially comfortable, if not well-off. And these parents with stable employment also have insurance policies that cover their daughters until age 21-25. Because of this, most of the undergraduates whose parents might be able to influence a policy change don't actually buy the policy. Who does buy the policy then? The relatively few undergraduate students whose parents are unemployed or self-employed, and grad students as well as undergrads who are too old for their parents' insurance benefits. Keep in mind that graduate assistant stipends often place grad students dangerously near the poverty guidelines, and that younger students whose parents are unemployed or otherwise suffering from the ongoing recession may not be able to count on help from home. So these two classes of students are both most likely to buy the insurance, and also most likely to need assistance with basic expenses like birth control, with can be cost-prohibitive for someone living paycheck to paycheck.

~ Brooke

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