Health at a Premium

One of the most complex issues confronting University officials in their drive for improved health facilities is the problem of student health insurance. It has become apparent that the $37.50 a year medical fee for all students is no longer adequate to meet the varied health needs of the University. Any new health plan must overcome several important deficiencies in the present program.

Since the University fee covers only medical costs incurred during the school year, students who want protection for the entire year must turn to other forms of health insurance like Blue Cross and thus face the unwelcome prospect of a double expense. Moreover, the student who is forced to undergo a serious operation may find himself in acute financial difficulties under the present system. While his University fee pays for such expenses as ward costs in downtown hospitals, laboratory fees, and X-rays, it does not cover another major medical item, the surgeon's fee. And the current program has worked a hardship on married students. For they must still pay the University medical fee, even though many join a regular health insurance plan in order to obtain coverage for their families.

Blue Cross coverage for all students has often been suggested as a solution for the insurance problem. But the ordinary Blue Cross program is far from a panacea for the ills afflicting the medical set-up. While Blue Cross would give a more complete coverage than the present University fee, it pays only $12 a day for hospitalization costs. Yet ward costs in any of the local hospitals run to at least $17 a day, a gap that many students would be hard-pressed to fill from their own pockets. In this respect, the current University fee is actually more satisfactory, for the University pays the full $17 a day costs up to a period of two weeks And Blue Cross also fails to provide coverage for mental or tuberculosis cases, which University hygiene officials consider a necessary part of a comprehensive student insurance system.

Any of several possible plans now under consideration might provide an adequate insurance program. The University could negotiate a contract with a private insurance company or a special policy with Blue Cross, correcting the deficiencies in that program. Or the University could undertake a self-supporting mutual insurance plan of its own without outside financial arrangements. In any event, only proposals meeting the standards of adequate coverage would be considered. Economy for the student should then be the determining factor in the decision. Hygiene officials estimate that such a program might be instituted at a cost of only $50 to $55 a year for each student, with part of that sum devoted to the continuing upkeep of the Hygiene Department.

One unsettled problem is the question of whether the insurance coverage should be voluntary or not. A voluntary insurance program could defeat its own purposes, however. Although it would give protection to those enrolled, it might also tempt students to pass up the needed coverage altogether. No doubt certain exceptions to the compulsory principle might have to be made, especially in the case of students who are already properly insured on coming to college and wish to maintain those policies. But these exceptions only prove the rule that should guide the University in its decision-comprehensive coverage for all students for their entire University years.