Op-Ed
A Caring Community
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In his commencement speech this year, President David J. Skorton called for other universities to join Cornell in launching a New Marshall Plan to reduce worldwide poverty and inequality. As President Skorton said, “These inequalities will affect all of us directly and personally.” I was greatly inspired by his ambition and compassion. But in order to fight injustice abroad, we must first focus on inequalities on our own campus. On Sept. 19, I wrote an article informing the whole community about the problem of uninsured student dependents at Cornell — a lack of affordable health insurance for some segments affects everyone in our community. Uninsured people may defer their health care and can risk spreading disease. This should especially cause concern for universities where people are in close contact with one another. Everyone can be affected even if they are not infected.
I myself realized this reality while witnessing the SARS crisis in China, when a student at my alma mater contracted the disease. All the people who were in contact with him the previous week were immediately quarantined for the following two weeks. The entire university was closed for two months, and no students were allowed to leave the campus. Fortunately, my alma mater identified the infected student and reacted quickly so that no one else got sick. If a similar outbreak were to occur at Cornell, what’s to say our campus would be so lucky? If we have uninsured people within our own community, it is more likely that they will defer treatment of their illnesses, due to cost. This means that they may infect others before they are finally treated. Can we afford to take two weeks off from our classes if there were an outbreak of meningitis or tuberculosis on Cornell’s campus?
Since I published this article, I have received suggestions and help from undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff, administrators and Ithaca residents. Our community needs to realize that this is an issue which affects us all, and as President Skorton said in a broader sense, “... Societal inequalities are complex ... remedies must be sought, sought vigorously and sought by each of us.”
With this in mind, we must resolve health care inequalities affecting uninsured dependents at our University. Unfortunately, we do not even know who these uninsured people are. Privacy laws do not allow the University to solicit information from dependents, and this makes it more difficult to identify and unite them.
Therefore, my colleagues and I decided to have a meeting and petition-signing at the Hasbrouck Community Center. We sent an e-mail invitation to all residents. To our surprise, the first three people who arrived at the meeting were all undergraduate students. Even though they are not personally affected by this problem, they said they just felt uncomfortable knowing that some of the spouses and children they met at various Hasbrouck events are uninsured. After the meeting, Alicia Irwin, Hasbrouck program assistant, suggested that I leave behind some petition forms in the community center so that people could continue to educate themselves and sign the petition. We came back two days later to find a surprise: we left two empty pages but collected three full pages of signatures.
Last week, one of my uninsured neighbors had a tragic accident. He was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance with a broken arm and required surgery. The unfortunate family has no dependent health insurance and now faces medical bills that may be nearly half of their annual stipend. During this difficult time, Gerardo Suazo, the graduate community assistant, not only kept me informed of the situation, but also spent a lot of time taking care of the injured resident; he behaved not like a community assistant, but as a family member tending to his kin. Gerardo’s individual act of human kindness is but one of many actions a caring community should perform to support students with families. Access to affordable and adequate health insurance must be part of that support and care as well.
Several faculty members are also contributing their expertise to help solve this problem. Prof. Kosali Simon, health economics, suggested that the first step to a feasible solution might be to survey and conduct a willingness-to-pay study. I also had the chance to meet the president of New York State Health Foundation, James Knickman, through Prof. William White, director of the Sloan Program in Health Administration at Cornell, and we were able to discuss issues associated with inadequate coverage of dependents at Cornell.
Comments and suggestions from administrators are essential, as they have been very willing to listen to student concerns in my experiences with them. Allen Bova, director of university risk management and Jo Ann Molnar-Kieffer, administrator of student health insurance, care passionately about the health care of uninsured people and, more importantly, the Cornell community as a whole.
Finally, a special thanks should be extended to the residents of Ithaca. David Bly, who works at the Tompkins County Public Library, was shocked to find out that many of his friends are uninsured. Many uninsured dependents get help from free health services like Planned Parenthood of Tompkins County and the Ithaca Free Clinic. Thank you, City of Ithaca! However, we at Cornell should be thinking about ways to help our own uninsured people so that we will not spread the community resources thinner than they already are.
Many positive things have been happening for Cornell students with families. The graduate school recently launched a mailing list which will periodically post event announcements, job opportunities and other information related to fostering connections for families at Cornell. The graduate community initiative, started by the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, also lists family needs as one of its priorities.
I believed that the reason we can make the New Marshall Plan a reality is not merely because we have the right skills and talents, but also because we have love and compassion. The knowledge we receive from Cornell will give us the ability to help those in need, but it is love and compassion that enable us to take action. I am convinced that we Cornellians will continue to show our devotion to those in need around the world, because I have already seen this commitment in action, displayed so much within our own community.
Mao Ye is a student-elected trustee. He can be contacted at my87@cornell.edu. Trustee Viewpoint appears alternate Wednesdays.