By Arden Berry | Staff Writer
U.S. college students are reaching adulthood at a time when the affordability of healthcare and health insurance is a growing concern.
According to a recent Gallup poll, 47% of U.S. adults are concerned about affording healthcare in 2026, the highest percentage since West Health and Gallup began polling for this measure in 2021.
“One in five Americans — also a record high — report that they or someone in their household couldn’t pay for prescription medications in the past three months,” the website reads. “These are merely two of countless healthcare hurdles Americans face.”
Even for college students, these statistics on paper can quickly become reality. Sugar Land sophomore Coralee Heyden said she discovered that her family had recently lost their insurance coverage while buying prescription medicine from CVS Pharmacy.
“It is too expensive for me,” Heyden said. “What am I going to do? Just not get it? Let my grades suffer? It’s not an option. I’m sitting there in my head going over, ‘OK, how many things will I have to save up for the next few months until I can find a job for myself?’”
But Heyden said she was not the only one struggling at the CVS Pharmacy counter that day. She was struck by the “cold reality” of the current healthcare system in the U.S.
“This one lady next to me, she’s trying to get her own medication that I think she needs probably just to survive … but she’s taking a long time in the line, and the lines piling up, and she’s apologizing to the people behind her while also trying to figure out why her payment’s not processing through there,” Heyden said.
Heyden said she had not given much thought to rising healthcare costs until she became responsible for her own, and she thinks other students should consider their healthcare costs as well.
“Ask your parents about their insurance plan, I would say, try and get that sorted out,” Heyden said. “You never know when you’re going to end up needing that information, and you’re going to feel stupid when you don’t have it, because you are an adult now.”
Baylor Health Services Insurance Claims Coordinator Lisa Bland said she has noticed insurance costs rising each academic year.
“We work with Academic HealthPlans to work with Blue Cross Blue Shield to see what we can do to lower those costs, and the rising cost of healthcare is kind of out of control,” Bland said. “We hate it.”
Bland said Baylor offers the Baylor University Student Health Insurance Plan, administered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas, to be affordable to students.
“It’s widely taken all over the United States, so even our online students can use this if they live in other areas, or if students go on vacation or go back home and they’re not from here, they can still use it,” Bland said. “It’s got a low $500 deductible. Office visits are $35. Specialist visits are $45. Lab x-rays, procedures, whatnot, are covered at 80%. There’s prescription coverages dubbed by tiers.”
If an incoming student has an outside insurance provider, Bland said she would encourage them to call the member services number on the back of their insurance card to make sure they are networked with Baylor.
“While we’re networked with most major plans, even the major insurers, Cigna, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, will still have some one-off plans for certain employers that have a very small network, and we may not be a part of them,” Bland said. “So we do encourage that. We don’t like to surprise anybody with a bill that they didn’t expect.”
However, she said Health Services offers a self-pay discount plan to students who come with coverage that Baylor is not in network with or that does not provide out-of-state coverage, which takes 40% off the charges for services that are not vaccines and do not involve an outside lab.
“We started that spring break almost two years ago because we did notice we had a lot of students from California with Kaiser, and we are currently not in network with TRICARE,” Bland said. “We have a lot of TRICARE students, and some TRICARE plans will pay visits here, but most will not. We wanted to have them a lower-cost option.”
Even for those without student insurance or those who are self-paid, Bland said the Health Center tries to keep rates as low as possible.
“We just need to keep our lights on,” Bland said. “We’re not going to make a profit, but we just really try to just kind of cover everything we have to cover and still keep our rates low.”
