Obamacare Cancels Historically Black College’s Health Insurance [Video]

Obamacare rules apparently resulted in the cancellation of health insurance for Bowie State University students.

Students at the historically black college used to pay $54 per semester for coverage. Because of Obamacare, a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act, the insurance was apparently scheduled to jump to an unaffordable $1900 per year as a result of regulations and heightened coverage mandates from the US Health and Human Services Department.

Founded in 1865 in Baltimore, Bowie State is Maryland’s oldest historically black university and one of the ten oldest in the country.

Bowie State’s alternative student newspaper The Bulldog Collegian reported that the school subsequently abandoned plans to offer replacement insurance. “According to… the Director of the Bowie State University Wellness center, after polling the students and getting the opinion of students serving in The Student Government Association at the time, the university decided it would be best not to provide any type of insurance option as the $1900 option would not be feasibly implemented.”

Reportedly returning students were informed of the big changes in their insurance coverage via an “obscure email” with a PDF attached indicating that rates would likely increase to $750/semester.

The Inquisitr has previously reported that some colleges have even dropped health insurance coverage for part-time, adjunct faculty as a result of Obamacare.

Uninsured Bowie students will have to find a policy on the Maryland health exchange, assuming the website is operational. Students who are on their parent’s insurance plan would be unaffected by the changes at the school, however.

One Bowie student interviewed by Campus Reform (see video embed) commented that “I can’t afford anything right now. I can’t even afford my loans.”

Separately, Democrat staffers in Congress reportedly have expressed shock about how much Obamacare is going to cost them and want the president to give them a bailout. Many (but not all) staffers on Capitol Hill are now required by law to obtain insurance from the DC healthcare exchange rather than continue under the generously subsidized federal employee program. Many of these staffers likely helped Obamacare become law when it narrowly passed Congress on a strict party-line vote.

” ‘In a shock to the system, the older staff in my office (folks over 59) have now found out their personal health insurance costs (even with the government contribution) have gone up 3-4 times what they were paying before,’ Minh Ta, chief of staff to Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), wrote to fellow Democratic chiefs of staff in an email message obtained by POLITICO. ‘Simply unacceptable.’ ”

In what has developed into a major controversy, President Obama repeatedly declared that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” when he was selling healthcare reform via the Affordable Care Act to the American people.

[image credit: M. Chambers]