Medical Insurance for students?
 

Let me explain my situation. I plan on going back to school to work for a bachelors degree starting this fall. My current job with the bank won't allow me to take time off for classes during the day so my only option is to either take less units and add another 3 years before I can get my degree or quit the bank and work a part time job. I have applied for a few already but pretty much all of them don't offer some sort of benefits.

I don't care about vacation time or whatever. I'm more worried about losing my free medical, dental, and vision. Since I live on my own I can't leech off my sisters. Paying for it out of my own pocket (at least medical) would cost me an additional 200 a month. Medical is important in case something were to happen to me. I've been making monthly visits to kaiser the last for months for treatment on something.

What would you recommend I do? Are there any secrets for students to get fairly cheap medical coverage?

When I was an undergrad, the university offered a really cheap health care plan; it was essentially clinical, so anything major that might've come up would've been referred to the hospital, but even then it was a hospital owned and operated by the school, so it was still cheap for students.

So check with your advisor or someone in the SGA (they actually know more than they might let on) about campus health care.

For the University of California system, you're required to get the health insurance if you don't already have your own (through work or your parents). It's about $90 a month, and can be used year-round. I don't think the undergraduate version comes with dental/vision, but the graduate version does. I just looked it up, and the community college near me offers medical insurance as well, so the school you go to should have something.

Most schools offer some sort of medical insurance for students, as they realize not all students are covered under their parents' plans.

Alternatively, I know Blue Cross/Blue Shield California has been advertising low-cost plans for younger people. They're geared towards people without any sort of chronic illnesses or rarely need to visit a doctor. It's more aimed at people that get sick now and then, or only see a doctor during ER visits.