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Preeti on the Web |
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Providing Food for Thought |
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For the roughly 45 million Americans without health insurance, the financial pain of going to the doctor can be worse than the physical pain of enduring an illness or injury. |
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America’s healthcare system is dysfunctional |
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November 1, 2005 |
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To Contact Preeti: preetiontheweb at yahoo dot com |
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Please note that all text on this webpage is copyrighted ©. Please do not quote or paraphrase without using proper citations. |
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Note: This op-ed column appeared in The Chronicle Nov. 1, 2005. “Poor blind baby,” I thought to myself one day last January. The company that managed my apartment building had placed a notice on my apartment door. The notice informed me that a one-year-old baby boy was suffering from an eye disease. The disease had robbed him of his vision. This sightless one-year-old was the son of one of the maintenance workers employed by the company that managed my apartment building. His only hope of ever seeing again was eye surgery. The notice said the surgery would undoubtedly place a financial hardship on the baby’s family. Could we, the apartment dwellers, make any donations? My sympathy for this baby was accompanied by anger—anger at “the system.” I live less than a mile from the Duke University Eye Center—affiliated with a Department of Ophthalmology ranked 8th in the country by U.S. News & World Report. Yet, for this baby to access the type of services offered at such a medical facility, his family was having to go broke and beg for money. This one-year-old was so close, yet so far, from the help he needed. I couldn’t help but remember this blind baby when Bill LeFew, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Council (GPSC), announced at October 24’s GPSC meeting that the Graduate School would next year be subsidizing health insurance for Ph.D. students who receive stipends from Duke. I was excited about this development, which was in part due to GPSC’s commendable work on the issue. But, I also couldn’t help but be reminded of how much of an inequitable patchwork quilt of a healthcare system we have in the U.S. It’s a patchwork quilt because some of us have access to affordable healthcare, but some of us do not: Some workers get health insurance through their employers, but some do not. The elderly and some of the poor can obtain government-subsidized healthcare through Medicare and Medicaid, but the rest of us cannot. At Duke, qualified Ph.D. students will now get a health insurance subsidy, but master’s and professional degree students will not. And, some blind babies are lucky enough to have parents who have access to affordable healthcare, but some blind babies are not so lucky. Living in the bubble of the Gothic Wonderland, most Duke students are sheltered from the danger of being one accident or one illness away from financial ruin. We all have health insurance—Duke requires it. Many undergraduates are covered by their parents’ policies. Many Ph.D. students will soon be covered through Duke’s subsidy. That doesn’t mean, however, that all students’ health insurance woes are over. Master’s degree and professional students still have to foot the bill for their insurance, which is $1,589 for Duke’s plan. Of greater concern are the graduate and professional students who have families. It currently costs an additional $3,392 to insure a family under Duke’s student health insurance plan. That makes the total cost of health insurance for a Duke student and his or her family $4,981. Keep in mind that for 2003-2004, average stipends ranged from $14,200 for TAs in economics to $20,000 for research assistants in mechanical engineering, according to a compilation of select departments that appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. And, what happens to us once we graduate? If we don’t immediately have a job that provides us health insurance, we can try applying for a private plan. Forget about paying a reasonable monthly premium, or even being accepted into a plan at all though, if you have anything in your medical history that might make you a financial risk, such as having hay fever, being treated for anxiety, or injuring an knee during your college years. Students on their parents’ plans can often stay on that plan by paying premiums out of pocket, which were around $310 monthly for me when I graduated from college in 2002. There’s always the option of going uninsured. Last year I had a physical. The bills from my doctor and the lab that performed my blood tests totaled $562. I paid $92. My insurance company paid a “negotiated rate” of $86. If I hadn’t had insurance, I would have been out nearly $600! (Is it any wonder why people forgo preventative healthcare?) Clearly, the American healthcare system is completely dysfunctional. I’d suggest some solutions, but most are politically unfeasible until a critical mass of Americans goes bankrupt from medical debt. Meanwhile, we’ll continue to have poor blind babies. |