Students struggle with health care too

My name is Alex Bogrand and I will be posting on Sundays. I am pretty moderate politically, having many differing liberal and conservative views depending on the topic, and as such will apply as little bias as possible in my posts. Today I want to write on students and health care. It seems there is an oft-overlooked section of the American populace that need their own healthcare reform. Up to 5 million college students (20 percent of college students) go without healthcare in America (most of them minorities and from middle income families) yet this fact does not receive the necessary attention it should warrant. This issue goes overlooked because of widespread notions that students are healthy, vibrant and well off, being young and involved in higher education. Furthermore, many college students are simply grouped by their age, in the “young adult” classification. Many are pushing for them to have their own classification, such as Jim Mitchell, the director of the student health services at Montana State University: “They are assuming college students and young adults are the same and they think the solutions they are coming up with for people under 30 will also work for college students,” Mitchell said in an interview, “They are a unique population and they need to be looked at as an individual group.” It is clear their situation is different; they or their families can often not afford health insurance because of school costs, they are more likely to injure themselves through sports or risky activities, and the healthcare they must then settle for through their school is often inadequate. Despite beliefs that the young are always healthy, “The reality is, accidents and illnesses do happen, even to young people,” said Denny Ebersole, an insurance broker in New Orleans and board member of the National Association of Health Underwriters (from the attached article). The mess of options presented to students is just as intimidating and confusing as those presented to any other person and they should be collectively recognized and given as much attention as everyone else in any sort of Healthcare reform. Being a student and having to deal with my own health care options I can say from personal experience that it is a muddled and frustrating process that needs attention and reform.

Here is an article describing the situation of student healthcare which also provides some helpful tips:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/health/02patient.html?_r=2&emc=eta1