While the health insurance plans with high limit, high coinsurance with low deductible are recommended , it was experienced that most of student, waive(opt out) school sponsored plan, chose cheap plan despite of high deductible plan on the understing that it has over 80% of co-insurance with adequate limit.
First of all, a simple comparison of school insurance and off-campus insurance, the insurance benefits of the school are wide but the premium is very costly. Why do schools recommend students to buy insurance plans that are expensive?
The reason is that American health care costs are very expensive, which was already explained in detail several years ago it because of well equipment of frontier high-tech medical devices in United States.
In 2016, medical costs for each person exceeded $10,000 in States. Compared with the global average, it is ten times as high as that. <source>https://apnews.com/dd6612ead1a14cd39bcca0be8758ef79/new-peak-us-health-care-spending-10345-person
http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/2.12
Let's take a look at how to choose insurance for school mandatory or off-campus student insurance.
Using the school's health centre, the school insurance is to provide direct billing services and some extra compensations, while the premium is quite high. For example, when school-sponsored plan covers 25 essential benefits and two additional benefits with premiums of $2,000 a year and general school student plan covers 25 essential benefits with $1,200 a year, students will be divided in to two group. One of the two is choosing general student plan with $1,200 to save the cost because they may be healthy and have strong need to save expenditure.
Of course, students who enrolled in general student plan can be treated in Student Health Center then request reimbursement to insurance company as wells as can visit In-Network medical provider with direct billing service.
When you choose student plan, you should check up whether the plan supports Network medical provider for direct-billing, cover the claims, occurred in oversea during your trip, covers in Student Health CenterCould with low deductible and copay and charge high deductible(over $2,000).
As insurance fee is delivered with tuition bill, many students don't know whether waiving school sponsored plan is allowed or not. Except several colleges and universities, most of US colleges and universities allow for international student to opt out(waive) their recommending plan then exempt the insurance fee on tuition bill or refund it if student paid the fee already.
Considering your health and financial status careful, decide either. Even if your school do not require health insurance, basic level of health insurance is necessary in USA.