McCombs Students Help Insure a Healthy Austin

Volunteers assist low-income residents with Affordable Care Act signups

Marialuisa Montelongo’s client was suffering from sticker shock. As the student at The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business was helping her enroll in the Health Insurance Marketplace under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the client learned her premium was going to jump $300 a month if she stayed with her existing insurer.

Montelongo patiently helped the woman look at alternatives, finding a policy with lower premiums and copays.

Such shocks are common this fall. Enhanced subsidies, which have reduced ACA premiums for 22 million Americans, will expire at the end of the year. That will cause average 2026 premiums to more than double, according to the health policy think tank KFF.

To Montelongo, that makes her work more important than ever. “You’re helping them not only gain access to health care, but to the best plan for them, affordability-wise,” she says.

She’s one of 32 Texas McCombs students who are volunteering at the Austin nonprofit Foundation Communities during the ACA’s open enrollment period, which started Nov. 1.

The organization’s Prosper Health Coverage program will help 4,000 low-income residents sign up for insurance by the time the period ends on Jan. 15. Clients include members of the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, a nonprofit that helps pay premiums for working musicians.

ACA’s volunteer application consultants are crucial this year, because funds for paid ones have been cut in half, says Miller Wilbourn, senior manager, Corporate & Volunteer Engagement. He’s counting on a total of 200 community volunteers to supplement his staff of 18. Half come from UT, most of them students.

“We would only be able to do a fraction of this without them,” Wilbourn says. “UT, in different ways, has been a huge help and a really big partner.”

Besides McCombs, UT volunteers come from the Health & Society Program, directed by sociology associate professor Nina Palmo, and two student groups: Longhorns Crushing Medical Debt and Foundation Communities on Campus.

At McCombs, students are coming from health care management classes taught by professor of management Kristie Loescher and management lecturer Mary Faria. The class is part of the school’s Health Care Reform and Innovation Minor.

All volunteers take online training modules and then an exam. They shadow a Foundation Communities staffer for a shift before taking shifts on their own. Some are in person and some over the phone.

Most get course credit for their work. In Loescher’s class, they staff four three-hour shifts and write a reflection when their work is complete, making up 15% of their final grade. But most students end up putting in extra hours, Loescher says, because they get passionate about the work.

Tamara Solayappan is one. The junior, who’s majoring in public health and minoring in health care reform and innovation, had never signed up for health insurance. She was surprised to discover how long and complicated the process could be.

First, she says, a client provides extensive personal information. Some can be tricky, like estimating next year’s income.

Once a client has been approved for subsidies, they choose from up to 50 Marketplace plans offered in Travis Country. Solayappan helps them compare plans and select the one that best fits their needs and finances.

“Seeing the different options and deciding what is most important for each person is different,” she says. “Some people I talked to really wanted to have cheaper visits to a primary care doctor versus someone who prioritized emergency visits.”

Viewing health care through the eyes of a prospective consumer gives her a valuable perspective, Solayappan says. “I want to go into some sort of health care-related field. It’s been a good hands-on experience of knowing what it looks like from the inside and knowing what people need in our community.”

The calls provide personal satisfaction, as well. “It makes one feel very accomplished,” Montelongo says. “You’re helping a client enroll for health insurance, and it’s going to change their next year by a lot, because some of these clients really do need to be using a lot of health care.”

Loescher’s students have been volunteering at Foundation Communities since she first learned about it in 2016.

“It’s awesome that Foundation Communities provides this resource for Austin,” she says. “Without them, people either wouldn’t get insurance, or they’d get insurance they couldn’t afford, or they’d get insurance they could afford but isn’t any good.”

She’s witnessed the program’s transformative effect. She remembers working with a woman who had been buying insurance on her own.

“I worked with her, and we got her better insurance for half the price, and she started crying,” Loescher says. “To be able to make that kind of a difference in an afternoon is pretty special.”

Open Enrollment runs through Jan. 15. For more information or to make an appointment at Foundation Communities, go to https://foundcom.org/health-coverage/.

Story by Steve Brooks