The Harvard University Student Health Program will not require significant alterations to accommodate the changes mandated by the act because it is a self-insured student health plan, meaning that it provides both insurance and health care services to Harvard students.

By acting as both an insurer and a healthcare provider, Harvard University Health Services avoids many of the bureaucratic obstacles faced by institutions that play only one of those roles. However, members of Harvard’s federal relations team had to inquire with Washington policymakers to seek clarity about what the act would actually mean for institutions of higher education, according to Director of News and Media Relations Kevin Galvin.

Many of the requirements of the act—which include providing preventative care at no cost, accepting individuals with pre-existing conditions, and eliminating lifetime or annual dollar limits—were already in effect in the Harvard University Health Student Program before the act became a law, according to Lindsey Garofalo, communications officer for HUHS.

The Student Health Planning Committee had voluntarily made changes that were in line with the requirements of the act well before its passage, Garofalo wrote in an email. However, students may feel the effects of the act after graduating from Harvard.

The act expanded coverage for young people, allowing individuals under the age of 26 to remain on their parents’ health insurance plans. For young adults in Massachusetts, who are already required by law to be insured, this provision means that they will no longer be required to purchase individual health plans for several years after graduating from college.

Many Harvard professors agree that the act will have only minor effects on the University, both in absolute terms and compared to similar institutions in other states.

According to Meredith B. Rosenthal, professor of health economics and policy at HSPH, the act was “politically designed to have modest effects on everyone other than the uninsured.”

Rosenthal says she believes that the most noticeable effect of the act will be the elimination of co-pays in recommended preventative care. Before the act, individuals were expected to pay part of the cost of the treatment.

“Many of the changes are subtle, but cumulatively, it makes a difference for a lot of people,” Rosenthal says.

THE ACT UNDER THE MAGNIFYING GLASS

Despite the limited repercussions at the University itself, many professors at HSPH have recently focused their research on the implications of the act, putting Harvard at the forefront of the academic debate about the act.

Katherine Baicker, a professor of health economics at HSPH, released a paper last summer showing that increased access to Medicaid resulting from the act did not decrease costs, but rather caused them to increase. This finding contradicted claims made by proponents of the act, who believed that an increase in preventive treatment would result in lower total spending by reducing the number of emergency room visits.

Although the price of care rose significantly, Baicker found that people were reporting improved health and fewer financial strains associated with healthcare costs.

Rosenthal’s research has examined the shared savings program for accountable care organizations, an initiative that links pay to quality of care rather than number of visits. Rosenthal says that the delivery system and payment reforms stipulated by the act will improve management and quality of health care.

“I shudder to think that that could be annulled,” Rosenthal says, referring to the pending Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of the law.