When the U.S. economic boat capsized two years ago, thousands of college students sitting on the edge of the rowboat found themselves tossed into an angry ocean of uncertainty.
Rising tuitions coupled with budget cuts in California during the past months have left many university and community college students hard-strapped for cash and struggling to make ends meet. Factor in trying to carry health insurance — which millions don’t have — and we see college students floating up a crap-filled tributary without sufficient locomotion.
The ones whose families can’t help with health care are playing Russian roulette with five slugs in the revolver.
As it stands, the annual national cost for health benefits for a family of four is $13,375, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. If premiums continue to climb like they have for the past 10 years, the survey claims, the cost would hit $30,803 a year by 2019, about the same time many current college students are raising young children.
It’s almost guaranteed in American politics that you can’t put a handful of elected people in the same room and hope to have something easily hashed out enough to please them all. When it comes to comprehensive health care reform, you’re lucky to get a politician to agree with himself over the right thing to do.
Often in the past few years, it almost seems the only way you can get anything done in state or national politics would be to put all elected leaders in one room — with one typewriter and one glass of water — and let the strongest emerge.
As we’ve seen more recently, nothing in the health care debate about to hit the U.S. Senate floor is considered to be a slam dunk for President Barack Obama’s administration.
Not only are Republicans heavily opposed to the moderate-leaning bill the Senate Finance Committee agreed to on Friday, some Democrats are hemming and hawing over it amongst themselves.
The bill, which is expected to start being mulled over and hashed out in a week or so, offers enough stuff for every politician to hate; and hate they will.
Among provisions of the current proposals are to subsidize costs for families and individuals who earn low to moderate incomes. Opponents contend this will translate to higher taxes for higher earners. If a student is forced to drop out because of illness or emergency, though, they won’t have to worry about becoming high earners.
Legislators are calling for new regulations for insurers like forcing them to insure people with pre-existing medical conditions, a move some medical providers threaten would make healthy, young people — like college students — subsidize health care for those who are older and/or sicker — like their grandparents.
Republicans swear that, because people are living longer, healthier lives, this could mean disaster for the current generation for years to come. It’s hard to imagine that students would really mind helping out their parents and grandparents, but that’s the claim.
Another conflicting demand is to require large companies to either provide health insurance or get slapped with penalties. Those against this provision claim that, while insurance will be less expensive, it will let large employers shirk responsibility and depress wages. The truth is it will allow insurers to offer more incentives to small employers to provide health insurance to employees. It will be cheaper for all businesses.
It’s critical to pass the most far-reaching health care legislation of this, or any other generation, since the Social Security Act of 1965 invented Medicare.
But when we put 100 politicians in a room to haggle about something that appears complicated enough to give 100 migraines, we’re almost assured they will muck it up. This health care overhaul is important and we certainly want them to get it right.
If worried Democrats and paranoid Republicans spend eternity tinkering it to death, tens of millions of their constituents will find themselves traversing “Shit Creek” without a paddle, along with the untold number of college students who are already in the river without life vests.