 "Photo: Photo Illustration By Justin Kenward")
Two months ago, a colleague from the Breeze fell and smacked her forehead hard on the pavement during the first great rainstorm of the season. Dazed, she lay on the ground while kind strangers redirected traffic, sheltered her with umbrellas and called the paramedics. When asked if she needed a ride to the hospital, her first thought was not the arm that felt broken, nor the head trauma that kept her dazed and uncharacteristically quiet. “I wonder what this is going to cost?” she worried. And with good reason, for the total cost of the evening’s misadventure was $2500 out of pocket expenses for an underemployed student without any health insurance. Make no mistake about it, she needed immediate medical care for her arm and her head injury but she is now saddled with $2500 of medical debt.
She got off relatively easy. A few summers ago, I sat gossiping during a lull in the Breeze office with two student reporters. Kylie was 19, working part time, living with family and carrying $13,000 of medical debt. She unfortunately had broken a leg and was not covered by her mother’s health insurance policy. Jackie was a 21 year old mother of 2 who was about to celebrate her 5th wedding anniversary. She and her husband were elated over the fact their marriage had remained rock solid through some very tough years. Nevertheless, they were carrying $30,000 of medical debt, contracted when the uninsured husband became ill with a brain infection.
Now, as we are about to go to press, the Obama administration is nearing a decision about the health care crisis we face. Why should we care? Aside from friends and colleagues, young adults are among the highest uninsured in the country. Most TRADITIONAL students are insured until they are 25 by their families’ insurance policies. But that still leaves about 1 in 5, or 1.7 million uninsured students.
Chaffey college, like many community colleges, however, educates a great many NON-traditional students, students 25 years and older. Nationwide 40% of all college students are older students. When you add this population to the number of uninsured students, the total balloons to 4 to 5 million. That’s a LOT of us.
Local agencies help. Chaffey’s Student Health Services, for example, treats some 40 to 60 people each week. And according to Director Kay Peek, 90% of them are uninsured or underinsured and that includes students who come to Chaffey from the Tent City homeless camp in nearby Ontario. As long as you are a registered student, you can get treatment for short term ills and counseling in a secure and confidential environment. “We even have geriatric patients who sign up for a one credit PE course,” she added, “just so they can come to our clinic.”
Still, some kind of health care or health insurance reform is long overdue. The face of the uninsured is us. If things don’t change, we either must carry a heavy load of debt or simply never get better.
BY THE WAY:
Chaffey’s Student Health Services offers doctor’s clinic, a nurse practitioner clinic and counseling sessions in a secure environment that protects the patient’s privacy. They have treated seizures, cardiac incidents, diabetic crises, and emergencies that paramedics usually handle. It was one of the first clinics in the country to get 300 doses of the H1N1 inoculation and offers some medications, condoms and educational outreach programs as well.
Locally, the MIA,or Medical Services Program of San Bernardino County, offers health coverage to low income applicants who do not qualify for Medi-Cal. The Student Health Services also offers information and referrals to other free and low cost agencies, if students cannot be treated on campus.
AND BY THE NUMBERS
Medical bills racked up by the l.7 million uninsured traditional college students add up to $120 to $255 million for non-injury related doctor and hospital visits. That’s a huge pile of bills.
In this day of recession and high unemployment, it is still unsettling to know that 60% of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills.
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