Student insurance: more pain than help

By Michelle Costa
October 19, 2010

Today we learn of health care issues that personally affect homes around the world every single day.  In the classroom, topics often focus on developing countries and the hardships of sustaining just resources.  I find that learning of these situations hits a nerve in my body that is hard to explain.

I want to help understand and speak on behalf of these countries, but how can I possibly do so when my own family is being subjected to the lack of health insurance?  I feel as though many students do not comprehend the complexity of what it means to be uninsured and essentially pay out of pocket.

Coming from a hard working comfortable middle class family, does not override the pressures and complications of being a child with self employed parents.  Being self-employed does not offer the benefits that larger and corporate companies would offer to families.

The financial expectations to cover a family are simply unacceptable and reach over a couple thousand each month for the most minimal coverage.

Cabrini College mandates each student to have health insurance in order to be considered a student.  Cost wise my family and I felt as though purchasing my health insurance through the school would be more beneficial financially.  Boy, we were so wrong.

Now on the plan for my second year, with not much of an alternate outlet, we owe more money then ever imagined.  It feels as though the little card that I hold in my wallet, entitled Devon Medical, covers no more then me simply opening the door of a doctors office.  Especially being a resident of Monmouth County New Jersey, the insurance does not accept any of my primary physicians.

This and other pamphlets, available at the heath services section of www.cabrini.edu, lays out what is and is not covered by Cabrini’s student insurance plan. -- MCT

I have a hard time understanding why a school would provide a service that is so inconvenient and stressful on families.  Medical fees on top of the 1,000 for each semester, seems inconceivable and ultimately frustrating.  Health care reform is the obvious answer.  We need a more accessible way for students to get their hands on credible and effective coverage.

I see the medical bills pile up with large past due balances.  I spend hours with the so-called costumer service representatives who share more advice through whimsical hold music then information and guidelines.  College insurance may as well not even exist. It is hard to believe that something so necessary to students’ lives has become a chaotic mess, not serving the proper medical needs.

I wish there was another way for students like myself to hold respectable health insurance that would eliminate family stress and high outstanding past due balances.  Things need to be changed, that’s the bottom line.  The health systems at colleges need to come to their senses and provide positive and functional plans.

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Michelle Costa

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