“I have to have it,” Farrell-Starling said of her personal health care plan. “But it doesn’t do anything for me.”

After a subcommittee of the Michigan House called MSU administrators to testify next Wednesday in defense of the university’s health care policy — which requires students to carry health insurance to attend — members of the MSU community are taking a harder look.

“Personally I don’t think they should bill people if they don’t have (insurance),” Farrell-Starling said. “College is already expensive.”

Starting with this year’s freshman class, students are required to prove they carry health insurance, which counts being covered under a parent’s plan, or face being automatically billed for the university plan.

The individual plan, offered through Aetna insurance, costs $1,505 per year for domestic students.

While Republicans in the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education have argued the policy creates another barrier to college by adding unnecessary costs, the policy is on par with the some experts’ expectations.

“Mandatory student health insurance requirements is not a new thing,” Anita Barkin, president of the American College Health Association, or ACHA. “Some schools have been doing this for awhile.”

A study from the U.S. Government Accountability Office shows 22 percent of public universities required students to have health care in the 2007-08 academic year, compared to 62 percent of private schools.

ACHA standards recommend a college policy that requires health insurance to attend; these policies protect students’ physical health and prevent them from dropping out of school when costs from a health crisis add up, Barkin said.

Compared to MSU’s plan, HealthPlus, another insurance provider, offers a individual young adult plan for about $900 a year.

But the MSU plan has other benefits. For instance, the university plan covers prescriptions up to $2,000 a year, while HealthPlus only provides a pharmacy discount card.

MSU is the first school in Michigan to have such a requirement, while several other Big Ten universities have implemented similar policies. A decision on its legality from the legislature would not only affect MSU students, but college students across Michigan for years to come.

More than 90 percent of incoming freshman already have health care coverage, a university spokesperson said.

“The vast majority of our students have health care coverage already,” said MSU Provost Kim Wilcox, who plans to testify in defense of MSU Wednesday. “The university can be a key part in raising awareness to health.”

Administrators previously had a meeting with State Rep. Kevin Cotter, R-Mt. Pleasant, to reach an agreement, although he took it to the committee when the university would not agree to make the plan optional.

“It will put another financial burden on attaining higher education,” Cotter said of the MSU plan in an earlier interview.

The health care debate is the latest of conflicts in an already tense relationship between MSU and the subcommittee.

The same group of legislators previously called administrators to testify in the summer regarding MSU’s tuition raises, accusing them of tampering with the definition of the academic year in order to raise tuition beyond the 7.1 percent cap required in Michigan to maintain full state funding.