How to Make College Even Less Affordable

 

How to Make College Even Less Affordable

Charge for Campus Healthcare

Our stark reality remains: we have the most expensive healthcare system on earth, one that does not reach all Americans, an add-on cost to American manufactures that foreign competitors do not have and one that requires massive special legislation when a pandemic hits. For college students – facing an escalating tuition, increasing room, board and books, higher interest rates for student loans – they are also slammed by mandatory annual healthcare coverage costs. But this lapse hits all of us. When American automakers relocated facilities from Michigan to nearby Ontario, Canada, it wasn’t about cheap labor. It was to cut the nearly $2000 per vehicle in union-mandated healthcare coverage. We lost a lot of jobs to Canada. Failure to fix our healthcare system only services the 5% atop the income ladder as part of their tax planning efforts.

For Europeans, the economic and medical slam from COVID did not require the massive legislative appropriations our Congress passed to cover US medical costs and provide economic support to those who lost their jobs from the pandemic. For the most part, Europe already had those medical costs and safety nets in place. Canadians are equally and universally annoyed at Americans who decry their universal healthcare system; they’d rather give up hockey.

To Republicans, they call all that “creeping socialism.” They use that label fast and loose to represent anything mega-wealthy taxpayers do not like. But there isn’t a movement in Europe to move private ownership of land, business, finance/banking and manufacturing to governmental ownership and control – the real meaning of “socialism.” Simply, taking care of citizens – social programs – is not socialism.

While using that “creeping socialism” mantra may work for older generations who lived through the “red scare” or the “domino theory” of global communist/socialist domination, there is little traction among younger generations saddled with student loans, a failing healthcare system, absurdly unaffordable housing and unchecked climate change that can only be countered by stringent government determination.

Since we have been unable to contain rising health costs and provide universal coverage through government means, the United States seems to remain dependent on our technology sector to provide the answers, but as physician and ZocDoc co-founder, Oliver Kharraz, writes for the December 16th FastCompany.com: “I believe that healthcare is the problem of our generation, and if we don’t fix it then it will break the bank, our health or both…

“When I look at the strategic common denominator across big tech’s ventures into healthcare, it is that they are not primarily solving for what healthcare needs. They are primarily solving how to make money with their respective core businesses: Apple is focused on driving adoption of its hardware (Apple Watch), Google on big data applied to clinical questions (Verily), and Amazon on leveraging its supply chain in areas like pharmacy (Pillpack, Amazon Clinic). .. Retrofitting these core competencies into healthcare may improve elements of it, but they will not meaningfully change healthcare’s root problem: a uniquely disconnected ecosystem that consistently fails patients and providers.

“For patients, almost nothing connects: The place with lists of in-network doctors is different to the one for scheduling, is different to the one for benefits information, is different to the one for payments, is different to the one with outcome data, is different to the one with medical records, and so on. It is a similar disjointed maze for providers and their staff. Their days are spent navigating antiquated, separate systems for scheduling, patient records, insurance approvals, and more. It is the disconnection of systems that is the source of frustration for both sides.”

Today, as if college were not already unaffordable for vast numbers of students, the practice – often a condition to enrollment – of requiring mandatory healthcare coverage (frequently, the university’s plan) moves that education out of reach for a whole lot of young minds. As Phil Galewitz (Kaiser Health News), writing for the December 18th Los Angeles Times, points out: “Mandatory medical insurance and health service fees are common at colleges as a condition of enrollment. But the big bill might come as a surprise, making a barely affordable education feel even less so. The costs vary by school but often can amount to several thousand dollars a year — costs that healthcare advocates say should be carefully reviewed by parents and students to ensure they understand their options while also meeting university requirements…

“[Some plans allow students to] seek a waiver to university health insurance by showing they have their own insurance or are covered by their parents’ insurance that meets specific university criteria. Schools typically want to see that a student’s own insurance covers local doctors and hospitals for little out-of-pocket cost. Student health fees, however, generally can’t be waived.

“USC, a private university, charges $2,273 a year for its Aetna student health insurance plan. The average for public colleges is $2,712 and $3,540 at private universities, according to a 2022 survey by Beckley’s firm, Hodgkins Beckley & Lyon… Other prominent colleges charge much more, such as $6,768 at Stanford and $4,163 at Dartmouth College. The University of Colorado charges $3,976…

“The easiest solution to avoid these charges would be for students to stay on a parent’s health policy — which the Affordable Care Act allows until they turn 26. But that works only if the student’s parent has a policy that meets the school’s comprehensive requirements and offers in-network coverage where the college is located… Schools that charge a student health fee and require insurance coverage say the funding helps cover services at campus health clinics, which otherwise would cost students hundreds of dollars a year or more.

“The USC student health fee — which covers primary and preventive health services — also helps the school pay for services not typically covered by insurance, such as monitoring disease outbreaks on campus.” America’s inability to solve its national healthcare debacle is the “gift” that keep on taking. That we are the only developed nation on earth without universal healthcare should be an embarrassment. Instead, it is worn on the GOP sleeve with pride.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it’s time to stop paying homage to false labeling and deal with the substance of this nation’s most challenging problems based on reality.