Officials at Bowie State, one of the nation’s oldest historically black colleges, are citing the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as the reason they have cancelled a school-wide affordable health care plan they had offered students.
The Maryland school’s official website explains that Obamacare’s new regulations would force the cost of the insurance to rise from $50 to $900 a semester, reports CampusReform.org.
“Bowie State University has suspended offering health insurance for domestic students for the 2013-2014 academic year,” states the school’s official website. “Due to new requirements of the Affordable Care Act which will go into effect on January 1, 2014, the cost of insurance for domestic students will increase to approximately $1800 per year.”
The student health insurance plan had cost students $50 per semester for the 2012-13 school year, according to a cached page of the university’s description of the plan. The original link to the description has been deleted.
According to an article in The Bulldog Collegian, Bowie State’s official student newspaper, the Director of the Bowie State University Wellness Center said that the university decided it would not be worth it to provide student health insurance at all given how expensive it would be to do so under the new regulations.
The student’s article, published Nov. 10, had slightly different numbers than the school website’s. It states that the student health plan used to cost $54/semester, not $50, and that the new insurance costs would amount to $1,900 per year, not $1,800.
In August of this year, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest suggested that President Obama would lend special support to the country’s historically black colleges and universities.
Several other colleges and universities, such as community colleges in New Jersey, have also had to cancel student health insurance plans, citing the Affordable Care Act.
