Op-Ed
Health Care for Students: Not just words
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Agree to Disagree
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Before reading this article, there are two things you should know about me. First, I’m not especially passionate about anyone in the upcoming presidential election, but I voted for Hillary. Second, I’m an honest-to-god, certified hypochondriac.
Truth be told, it’s tough for any young Democrat not to support Obama. Behind the boyish charm, there’s a ripened, rotund voice that churns out oratory straight from an Aaron Sorkin screenplay. His message of change has won everything from Oprah’s endorsement to superdelegates, and what’s more, his opponent offers few substantive policy differences.
That said, there’s one especially glaring difference between the Democratic candidates, and that’s health care.
Put simply, as Paul Krugman wrote last month, “The big difference is mandates: the Clinton plan requires that everyone have insurance; the Obama plan doesn’t.”
When I hash out this debate with my friend Jacob Lieberman ’08, he, like Senator Obama, argues that if health care is affordable, then Americans will buy it. The Obama camp maintains its support for universal health care, but sees its plan as a “different way of getting there,” as the candidate said during the Texas debate.
Yet economists have asserted that as many as 15 million Americans will remain uncovered under Obama’s “universal” health care plan, chiefly because of “healthy people who decide to take their chances or don’t sign up until they develop medical problems,” as Krugman writes. The Obama plan provides access to universal health care, but not the real McCoy.
All this was stewing in my honors thesis-wracked brain as I pulled the lever (well, filled out an affidavit ballot because of registration confusion) for Hillary a few months back, but it wasn’t until this week that I fully comprehended the significance of Obama’s health plan.
On Monday, while skimming through The Sun, I came across an article on the inside pages (which, to my mind, should have appeared on the front) about student health care at Cornell. Although the University requires students who don’t have health insurance to sign up for the Student Health Insurance Plan offered by Cornell, it seems that some students, in an effort to evade costs, have opted out entirely.
“I opted out of the school plan because it was very expensive and I’m an independent student and can’t afford to waste $1,400, and I’m pretty healthy,” an anonymous student told the Sun. Instead of buying into SHIP — which, according to the Office of Student Health Insurance, does cost $1,434 for the annual premium — this student claimed that he was protected by an old policy.
What’s more disturbing is that this student is not a lone renegade, but part of a large population of college-age students. Aetna, the underwriter of Cornell’s insurance policy, estimates that 10 percent of the uninsured population are college students, and that one-third of the nation’s uninsured are between the ages of 18 and 24, according to the Sun.
“A significant number of college students (nearly 4.5 million, including many graduate students) do not have coverage, and many more do not have adequate coverage,” said Stephen C. Caulfield, chairman of the Chickering Group, which provides plans to 170 colleges and universities, including Cornell.
In fact, health care for students is an extremely complex issue — specifically because of the inconsistencies between family health care plans and those provided by colleges and universities. Taxed with growing budget constraints, institutions across the country are no longer providing all-access health care facilities, and are asking families to pay additional fees for specific medical services. That some students have no health care at all is a major source of difficulty.
Thus when worried Democrats criticize Obama’s plan for leaving people out, we, the college students, are a significant part of that audience. The difference between the two plans isn’t semantics — or in Obamese, “just words” — but actually a substantive choice for people my age.
“Senator Obama’s plan does not and cannot cover all Americans. He’s called his plan universal. Then he called his plan virtually universal. But it is not either. And when it comes to truth and labeling, it simply flunks the test,” Clinton said to applause in Ankeny, Iowa.
Like everyone else in this country, college-age students become ill. Just this weekend, a close friend of mine came down with a very serious and contagious infection. And across the country, as I wrote about last week, students are suffering from mental illnesses that can quickly become violent.
When Obama talks about health insurance, it’s as if someone would have to be either stupid or fearless to opt out of his plan. Yet in listening to those who choose to opt out, it’s clear that without mandates for health insurance, people who are smart, rational, and concerned — but poor — will suffer.
“The reason why universal [health coverage] is such an issue in this political campaign is because people can’t afford to be healthy in the United States, and Cornell is just a microcosm of what’s happening nationally,” the anonymous student told the Sun. “It’s a human rights issue — everyone should have the right to be healthy, but some people can afford it, and some people can’t. For the average Cornell student who is managing their own finances, it’s just that.”
Rob Fishman is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at rbfishman@cornellsun.com. Agree to Disagree appears Tuesdays.