WASHINGTON — University of Delaware student Michelle Rigney has stage-four malignant melanoma and her biggest fear, next to dying, is losing her health insurance.

By federal law, students between 19 and 24 are only eligible to keep their parents' health insurance if they attend school full-time, leaving a tough choice for those like Rigney.

If she stays in school, she may not be able to balance a full load of classes and the demands of being a cancer patient. If she's too sick to go to school, she could lose her health insurance when she needs it most.

"My biggest concern is just having to force myself into working or staying a full-time student just for the benefits," said Rigney, 22, of Bear, Del. "I just wouldn't be able to survive if I didn't have medical insurance."

Federal lawmakers have proposed bipartisan legislation to allow college students to take up to one year of medical leave for a physician-certified severe illness without losing their health insurance. Advocates of universal health coverage have endorsed the legislation as a good step forward.

"No one should have to jump through hoops that actually threaten their health in order to maintain their health insurance," said Steven Weiss of the American Cancer Society.

But attempts to amend the Employee Retirement Income Security Act — the federal law setting minimum standards for most voluntarily established healthcare and pension plans in private industry — may not come without challenges.

"The only people who would take advantage of this would be those who expect to run up a significant cost, so that would suggest that this mandate will come with a cost," making health insurance unaffordable for others, said Devon Herrick, a senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, a research organization promoting private alternatives to government regulation.

The bills currently being floated in the House and Senate are named "Michelle's Law," not for Rigney but for Michelle Morse, who died in 2005 from colon cancer.

Her doctors advised her to take medical leave from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire. But to maintain her insurance, she attended classes full-time wearing a wig and chemotherapy pump, said her mother, AnnMarie Morse.

Had her daughter left school, Morse would have seen her monthly payments spike from $290 for the family plan to at least $1,000 with the additional premium for a COBRA extension of her policy and co-pays.

"Our family could not afford that kind of money and our family is not unique from most of the families in the country," said Morse, a teacher.

AnnMarie Morse won her fight to change the law in New Hampshire, creating the model for the federal bills. A host of other states have either passed or are pursuing similar legislation. But federal lawmakers still need to amend ERISA because the federal law — not state law — governs self-funded programs, Morse said.

Rigney's insurance plans fall under that category. The federal bill would help her, she said, "because I wouldn't have so much pressure and anxiety of how I'm going to actually afford these bills and continue on getting treatment."

The cost of Michelle's Law should be negligible, considering the small percentage of the insured population affected, said Reps. Paul Hodes, D-N.H., and Mike Castle, R-Del., the House bill's co-sponsors. The incidence rate of cancer, for example, among those 18 to 22 is 27.3 per 100,000 annually, according to the American Cancer Society.

"I think we're frankly correcting something that is illogical and irrational and I think the cost will be generally incidental and not be the kind of cost that will drive up prices," Hodes said.