A new policy improving student health care plans is taking effect across the nation, but for students with St. Thomas health care, there won’t be drastic changes, said Madonna McDermott, director of student health services at St. Thomas.

“We tried to make the conversion as seamless as possible,” McDermott said.

Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary, recently announced a new policy that clarifies health care policies from the Affordable Care Act. This new policy increases the quality of coverage for about 1.5 million students.

Junior Libby Strub has had St. Thomas health care for two years and said she has not noticed many changes to her St. Thomas policy.

“I feel like you would have had to use it a lot to notice the changes,” Strub said.

St. Thomas underwent a health care policy improvement two years ago before the national policy was passed. For example, McDermott said St. Thomas students now have up to $1 million in coverage, compared to the previous $50,000 in coverage, which fulfills the new national policies regarding increased caps for coverage. Students will also not be denied health insurance because of an accidental mistake on their health forms.

“We’ve already been a step or two ahead of some of these things, because our policy already covers up to $1 million [in coverage], so we really won’t be needing to make any major changes,” McDermott said. “A lot of colleges, I would say a majority of colleges across the country, with this new regulation, are going to need to make some major changes.”

St. Thomas’ health care policy covers about 1,000 students, McDermott said, and approximately half are undergraduate students and the other half are graduate students. She said the improved coverage has attracted more students.

“We have seen a slight increase in the number of students covered on the Aetna Student Health Insurance plan over the past two years,” McDermott said. She said clearer guidelines and a low overall price were the main reasons for the increase.

Sophomore Vee Khang said he chose the St. Thomas plan because he “did not have time to get another [policy] before school started.”

Strub said the St. Thomas plan has been “easy and fairly cheap.”

St. Thomas’ student health care policy costs $963 per year and is available during the summer months in addition to the regular academic year.

McDermott said she hopes the St. Thomas policy will remain affordable in the future.

“Our challenge as we move forward will be to provide students with this rich of a health care benefit plan and keep the cost down,” McDermott said.

Lizzy Schmitt can be reached at schm9587@stthomas.edu.