Due to many concerns of students over the last few years, the Undergraduate Student Government has been working for the past year and a half on the acceptance of MassHealth at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Throughout the whole process, President Ignacio Chaparro and Vice-President Jennifer Mai of the USG were working closely together with the University Health Services (UHS) and met frequently to tackle this challenging procedure.

In the discussions, Chaparro and Mai addressed the issues of students together with several representatives of the UHS, including the Interim Assistant Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs/Executive Director Kathleen Yorkis and the Assistant to the Interim Assistant Missy Westhaver, as well as other directors of the different departments.

Kathleen Yorkis, Linda Jorgensen, and Julie Yu of the UHS also attended one of the USG’s meetings and explained in depth the situation of Aetna insurance at UMass Boston and what could be done to improve it. Since the senators saw that the call for the acceptance of MassHealth was high among students and that it was a realistic demand, they advocated in favor of it.

USG President Chaparro points out that “we want to make sure we do our very best to bring the issues that students face to the forefront and work as hard as possible to create solutions.”

He also expressed his appreciation for the support and collaboration of the whole department of the University Health Services.

On January 15th, 2015, the new policy became effective.

With the exception of those who have MassHealth Limited, students can now go onto their WISER accounts and simply waive the student health insurance, just as with any private insurance, or a parent’s insurance if the student is covered by it.

For any questions, contact the University Health Services at http://www.umb.edu/healthservices/about.