Students at state colleges and universities could be required to have medical-insurance coverage under a proposal endorsed by a special task force on health-care reform.

The majority of college students are among the 18-to-34 age group that is figuring into the state's developing grand design for fixing health care. A key step in the plan is to shrink the ranks of Utahns who have no health insurance (about one in nine) as well as dilute the insurance pools by adding young, healthy people who pay premiums but who don't tend to seek a lot of medical services.

Leaders of the reform project consider students "the low-hanging fruit" in the effort to control health-care costs, increase access to health insurance and increase personal responsibility for staying well.

Language for the state plan hasn't been firmed up, and task-force members have shied away from any talk of making health insurance mandatory for any age group, but lawmakers can expect a bill on student health insurance during the upcoming session of the Legislature.

Community groups working with the task force have said more students and more Utahns in general would sign up for insurance if an affordable, "benefits light" plan for small groups or single individuals were available.

Every Utahn can obtain insurance, but the chronically ill often can't afford the premiums, and healthy people often don't see the need for health-insurance plans that provide maternity or long-term care or other benefits they don't use. Task-force members have asked for and insurance carriers are developing several basic plan options, but federal law controls just how bare-bones an insurance benefits package can be.

Student clinic directors and state Department of Health surveys show that most students who don't have insurance could afford it, they just decide not to buy it because they don't consider the services covered as essential.

Younger Utahns are healthier, but they are also much more emergency room-prone for what health care they do need — traumatic injuries suffered playing sports or in traffic accidents, according to health department data.

Reducing the number of uninsured Utahns remains a constantly moving target. About 300,000 Utahns don't have coverage, according to best public and private estimates.

The recent downturn in the economy is skewing the number. Almost anyone who loses a job also loses the insurance coverage provided by that job. In Utah, 1.5 million workers are enrolled in insurance plans offered through the workplace.

Economists predict that number will be decidedly lower when the ripple effect of the recession is fully known. Last year, before the economic woes hit, Utah led the country in the percentage of businesses that had dropped offering insurance as a job benefit.

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E-mail: jthalman@desnews.com