Our Opinion: Hard waiver health insurance is not suited for students at this University.

Student Sen. Justin Brackett introduced a bill that opposes mandatory health insurance for all campuses in the UNC system, also called hard waiver health insurance, during Wednesday’s Student Senate meeting.

If adopted, every student would have to pay about $600, or students who are already covered would have to show evidence of a health insurance plan that is comparable.

Though this is a valiant effort to prevent students from having required health insurance, Associate Vice Chancellor and Director of Student Health services Jerry Barker said if the bill passes, then it would only state the Student Senate’s opinion and not be legitimate legislation.

The real decision of whether UNC system schools will have hard waiver health insurance for 2010-11 will come when the UNC Board of Governors convenes May 7 and 8, and Barker said there was strong support for mandatory health insurance, with the exception of NCSU and UNC.

The BOG must know each school should decide whether to have hard waiver health insurance rather than requiring every school to.

Several schools in North Carolina, including Western Carolina, Fayetteville State and UNC-Greensboro, have adopted the hard-waiver health insurance policy.

Hard waiver health insurance may be suitable for other UNC system schools that may have inadequate health care facilities, but N.C. State has a health care center that serves students well.

Hard waiver health insurance is also not fit for NCSU also because about 2,200 students do not have health insurance by choice, according to Barker. Some students chose not to have health insurance to save money, and they may not be able to afford an extra $600 a year to attend college.

NCSU students should have the right to not have health insurance if they choose.

Also, Barker said the University may have to hire someone to process the paperwork that comes along with this system. This means the University would have to add on additional student fees to the cost of health insurance. This would mean extra fees per student and a slew of extra paperwork to fill out.

Hard waiver health insurance has its benefits and may be suitable at other institutions. For instance the more students who have a health insurance plan through the University would make the cost per student cheaper. But it should be left up to each school to determine if it is appropriate, and the BOG should not make this an across the board decision.