Enrolling College Students In Health Insurance: Lessons From California (Part 2)

Abstract

Editor's note: As we approach the beginning of the second open enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act, Walter Zelman describes an effort he led during last year's initial open enrollment period to enroll students in the California State University (CSU) system in coverage. Part 1 of this post provided background on the CSU system and the enrollment effort, the CSU Health Insurance Education Project, as well as a discussion of what worked well. Part 2, below, addresses what worked less well, as well as project results, lessons and policy implications, and next steps. In addition to Zelman, authors of this post include Wendy Lee, now in a Masters of Public Health Program at Johns Hopkins; Natasha Buransombati, now in a graduate program in Nursing and Public Health at the University of Seattle in Washington; and Carla Bracamonte, now in an MPH program at California State University, Fullerton. As CSU students, Lee and Buransombati served as regional coordinators for HIEP and Bracamonte served as a coordinator, CSU Los Angeles. IV. What Worked Less Well Assessments as to what did not work must be rendered with caution. In most cases lack of success may have been due to lack of emphasis or time, to the relative inexperience of student educators, or the failure of project leaders to follow-up aggressively with CSU or administrative personnel. Campus groups, social media, and web pages Most striking and disappointing, was the difficulty in engaging campus groups. Many seemed supportive of the mission. But, in the end, most were unable to commit time and resources to the project, even after repeated engagement by project representatives. Most campus groups had specific goals and agendas, and promoting insurance coverage to students was not one of them. More time or resources might have produced more campus organization support, but these were not available.