Questions about HLS Health Insurance Extension
This may have been covered in one of the “Navigating Unfriendly Waters” events recently, and those of you with more info should chime in, but we wanted to tell you what we’ve heard. The question about extending HLS health insurance for graduating students has come up lately because of the unusual number of students that are seeing their start dates at firms delayed. Due to the delay, they are finding themselves facing a longer than normal period of time in which their HLS health insurance will be canceled and their employer’s health insurance will have yet to begun. So, what have we heard and what can be done?
First off, this is not actually a new problem. It has always been the case that graduating students may face a gap in coverage between HLS and their new employer. What has changed is that Harvard insurance used to end on 8/31. Recently, however, Harvard changed that date to 7/31. This change was made because many schools’ insurance coverage for the new academic year starts in August, and therefore the school was paying for double coverage for thousands of students for some period of time in August. Second, insurance options are controlled by University Health Services not HLS. And while HLS can certainly advocate for their students, they do not make the ultimate decision about what the insurance policy for the University will be.
No doubt, some of you have heard about a health insurance extension program at Northwester Law and wonder why HLS doesn’t have such a program. After some digging, it turns out that the Northwestern program that has been written about is actually a program that offers insurance options to Northwestern alumni through their alumni association. It’s a great program, but it is not new and not necessarily unique to Northwestern.
So, what is HLS doing, what more can be done, and what can Student Government do? Well, Harvard and HLS don’t currently have any sort of alumni insurance options. That would be the most obvious solution, but University Health Services is not licensed to sell insurance to alumni at this time. HLS administration has been discussing these concerns with the University for quite some time, but until now, it is not something that has really been on the students’ radar. If Student Government can do anything to help, it would likely be to organize the student voice and seek some change in Harvard’s policy that would make some sort of insurance available to graduates, at least on a short term basis. There is a lot more to be learned about these concerns, but it is something we will continue to be involved in over the summer, and plan to explore more fully next year.
In the meantime, you can check out what insurance options do exist for graduates at the following site: http://www.law.harvard.edu/current/student-services/commencement/health-coverage.html
And be sure to share your thoughts about how we can organize student opinion on this matter in the months to come.
Thanks,
Brian
