KANSAN.COM
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NEWS
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Most students prefer parents' healthcare over University's
CHANDLER BOESE
@Chandler_Boese
In the year since the Affordable Care Act was implemented at the University, 32 student employees have qualified for healthcare plans. This means they qualify for the plan offered to all state employees, said Ola Faucher, director of Human Resources.
The reason for this may be, Faucher speculates, that the student health insurance plans are sufficient enough for many students. However, some students may choose to stay on their parents' plans rather than look into employee or student plans.
Of these 32, two have opted to enroll in the plan.
The student healthcare package, which international students are required to purchase and graduate student employees are offered at a discount, is offered to all college students in Kansas through the Board of Regents. For an annual plan not including dependents, a student would pay $1,489.
At the end of this May,2,815 University students were enrolled in the student healthcare package, according to information provided by Breeze Richardson, director of communications for the Kansas Board of Regents. Of those, 1,344 were international students required to purchase the plan and 994 were graduate students, whose premiums are covered up to 75 percent by the University. That means 477 domestic undergraduates were enrolled in the plan.
As of the previous May, 2,731 students were enrolled in the plan, including 938 graduate students, said Richardson. At that time, domestic and international undergraduates were not broken up in reporting, but a total of 1,793 undergraduates were
enrolled.
Richardson said any change in the numbers cannot be exclusively attributed to ACA.
Another provision of ACA dictates that young adults can stay on a parent's plan until they turn 26 years old: Some student employees of the University choose this option over the student or employee health insurance plans.
Michael Cox, a sophomore from Augusta, works at the Anschutz Library circulation desk. He said he wasn't sure whether the University had offered him health care because he knew he already had health insurance.
"I may have been offered it when I was hired on at the library a year ago, but my dad's ex-military, so I do healthcare through the government that way," said Cox. "I just chose to
SEE ACA PAGE 08
University of Kansas students* enrolled in student healthcare package *Total of 2,815 students
Source: Breeze Richardson, director of communications, Kansas Board of Regents
Fracking divides small town of Anthony, Kansas
REBECCA DOWD
@beccapfleger0
A class of fourth graders sits in the library of Harper Elementary School in Anthony, a small town in south central Kansas. Their eyes shoot up as books fall off shelves, the ceiling shakes above them and the ground trembles beneath them.
Hannah Alldritt, a librarian at the school, remembers the third grade class rushing outside after an earthquake in the fall of 2014. The teacher panicked as all the students cried.
Alldritt said the teacher was at a loss of how to reassure a class of 9-year-olds who had never experienced an earthquake. Eventually, this would become a common occurrence.
"By the end of the school year, we
had been through so many earthquake the kids barely registered them anymore," Alldritt said.
The small community of 2,269 is divided over the economic growth provided by oil companies' entrance into the town and the constant earthquakes that come from the hydraulic fracturing waste, said Grecia Rucoba,a junior from Anthony. The oil companies employ many people in the town, so some go to great lengths to protect the companies and argue the earthquakes are not correlated with drilling for oil, she said.
"Our community is divided now. People cannot decide whether to work for the oil company or fight the oil company," Rucoba said. "It was really hard for my family to decide whether they wanted to be a part of
the growing economy or fight it." Even though working for an oil company meant higher pay for Ricoba's dad, she said he still decided to quit his job.
"Since I have been living in Lawrence, I don't experience the frequent earthquakes, so I can't take a stance like my dad did," Rucoba said.
Earthquakes are only one effect from the oil companies' movement into the community, Alldritt said, and leasing land to the company impacts the entire community.
"Roads throughout the county were destroyed by oil trucks hauling heavy equipment, and that was a big point of contention because the people who lived on those roads were not necessarily the ones leasing land," Alldritt said. "There are several people, including the county
itself, who are leasing land to different oil companies for millions, but the rest of the town has to live with the repercussions without the monetary benefits."
The town of Anthony has experienced 36 earthquakes since March 1, 2015. In the past, the earthquakes only registered at magnitudes between a 2.0 and 3.0, but on June 5, Anthony residents experienced a 4.0 magnitude earthquake, according to the Kansas Geological Survey.
The increase in seismic activity is caused by oil production practices in Kansas, said Mike Taylor, associate professor of geology and specialist in active fault systems at the University. But many people misunderstand the cause of fracking-related earthquakes, he said.
Extracting oil from the ground
also extracts dirty water, and the only place for the water to go is back into the ground. The high frequency at which the water is shot into the ground causes plates to shift and creates frequent earthquakes. The water is being shot into the ground more often since the oil boom, Taylor said.
Drilling into the ground, has been going on for centuries, he said, but the difference in the way oil companies drill today and the amount of hydraulic fracturing water waste produced causes an increase in earthquakes.
In the past, oil companies drilled vertically, which only extracts a small amount of waste water. As the need for oil increases, companies
SEE FRACKING PAGE 08
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