THE UNIVERSITY HAIYA KANSAN
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2009
NEWS
5A
(1) 2023年1月1日至2024年1月1日
Nick Tallmon, Lawrence senior, is an athletic student and president of the KU Judo Club. Tallmon has health insurance but was recently diagnosed with Type I Diabetes. The medication for Tallmon's condition costs him over $1,000 a year out of pocket.
conditions often incur the highest medical costs, and as such, face consequences of either more expensive health insurance or no coverage at all. Most health insurance providers won't accept someone with a chronic condition if the person has been without health insurance for two months.
In Douglas, Wyandotte and Johnson counties, approximately 10,900 residents suffer from pre-existing conditions, according to HHS.
Under the Board of Regents plan, people diagnosed or treated with pre-existing conditions within the past year can't receive coverage for the condition until they've had the plan for eight consecutive months, unless they have had other credible coverage up until buying the plan.
Before receiving insurance, most health insurance providers require patients to prove they've been condition-free for six consecutive months. The requirement leaves people with diabetes and asthma without much hope.
According to a Commonwealth Fund 2009 report, one in six young adults have a common, chronic condition such as high blood pressure or asthma.
UP A CREEK
WITHOUT AN INHALER
Because many pre-existing
House: limit pre-existing condition clauses to one month, eventually prohibits them by 2013.
Nick Talmison, Lawrence senior, was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in May 2008. He had health insurance when he was diagnosed, and while that provides him with coverage, it also makes him susceptible to increased premiums with no way out. That's because few health insurance agencies are willing to incur the costs of those with pre-existing conditions.
People with preexisting conditions such as diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure face an uphill battle anytime they apply for coverage
"Unless they change the laws, there's absolutely no way I could get health care anywhere else because diabetes is considered a high-risk pre-existing condition,"he said.
Because many conditions may require prescriptions, the student health fee doesn't help students purchase supplies for the condition.
Senate: prohibits bias toward pre-existing conditions in 2010.
for coverage.
Nick Tallmon,
Lawrence senior,
discovered he
had Type 1 diabetes
in May 2008
He said the $160 he
the costs were fair, given his healthy lifestyle — he's the president of the KU judo club — and his careful maintenance of his condition.
Even with insurance, Tallmon said he paid about $1,000 per year for his prescriptions and co-pay for doctor visits.
When Willbanks felt pain shooting up his right arm on the first day of classes three years ago, he took the risk of missing the syllabus to calm down at Watkins.
When he arrived and described his symptoms, Willbanks said the staff at Watkins, knowing his family history of heart problems, immediately called for an ambulance to take him to LMH.
LIFE WITHOUT INSURANCE
Knowing the ambulance alone would cost him $1,500. Willbanks' anxiety worsened.
"Yes, I have a pre-existing condition," he said, "but I'm actually really healthy for someone with that condition."
"It's a horrible Catch-22 where to solve anxiety, you have to do something that fills yourself with anxiety," he said.
After a 10-minute
After a 10-minute ambulance ride, an electrocardiogram reading, some medicine, an overnight stay and a plate of hospital food, Willbanks left LMH the next morning. Receiving anxiety treatment the first time in
pays every three months for insulin would be about $1,000 without insurance — increasing his costs from $640 to $4,000 a year.
Although he has had health insurance since before the diagnosis, Tallmon said his condition still costs his parents $12,000 each year.
Tallmon, 28, said he didn't think
"Yes, I have a pre-existing condition, but I'm actually really healthy for someone with that condition."
NICKTALLMON Lawrence senior
Working 30
nine years cost him $10,200. He later negotiated the cost down to $5,000.
"I don't think it's acceptable that in what is often called the greatest country on the face of the planet we do not insure everybody."
TANNER WILLBANKS Lawrence senior
Until then, Willbanks will continue to cope with his anxiety attacks on his own. Athey will continue to fund his own health care. The patients at JayDoc will continue to fill the waiting room. And Tallmon will continue to pay out-of-pocket for his diabetes medication.
hours a week in technology support with the University's Instructional Development and Support department, Willbanks is paying his debt $75 a month. Three years since the incident, the bill is still $2,500.
Willbanks said he might have to declare bankruptcy because he wants to attend graduate school after he earns his bachelor's degree in May. Because of his condition and his medical bills, he said he was looking, not for the best graduate program in the country, but for a university that offered reduced-cost health care for students.
that at some point in the future, I'll have to declare medical bankruptcy even for that $2,500," he said. "Filling for bankruptcy for $2,500 seems ridiculous, but if you can't pay, you can't pay."
"There's a distinct possibility
Edited by Tim Burgess
"I don't think it's acceptable that in what is often called the greatest country on the face of the planet, we do not insure everybody," he said. "I think that if we don't cover every single human being in the country, then we are not able to call ourselves the greatest country in the world."
Both the House and Senate bills also propose the idea of a public health insurance exchange. Health insurers can join this exchange if they meet a certain criterion, such as not rejecting people with pre-existing conditions.
George Dungan, Lincoln, Neb., senior and vice president of Young Democrats, described the exchange as a "one-stop shop for health insurance."
"Rather than shop around and talk to different brokers from various companies and try to figure out how much it's going to cost you, you're going to be able to go to this exchange, find one broker and figure out the best price for you," he said. Both bills require almost every American to purchase health insurance or face penalties or the jail time associated with tax evasion. The penalty for refusing to purchase health insurance under the House bill would cost 2.5 percent of the person's total income. The Senate bill would require a maximum annual fine of $750 per person without health insurance.
Moore said the bill was designed to provide more Americans with health insurance to lower the costs incurred from uninsured visits to the emergency room.
Dungan said the mandated health care coverage couldn't come without a public option or subsidies to help people pay for health insurance.
Only dependents, citizens living outside the U.S. and a few other groups are excluded from this mandate in the House bill.
"Mandated health care is necessary to get everybody covered," he said. "But if you mandate health care without giving them an affordable option, you're screwing them over, and that's not what we're trying to do here."
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the House bill would bring in $167 billion in penalties over the next decade from people without coverage, assuming people would rather pay fines than pay for health coverage.
Both bills have a provision allowing people to keep their current insurance policies if they wish.
She said she thought the closest thing to fixing the system would be a public option with a universal mandate for health care.
As a volunteer at JayDoc and a fourth year medical student at University of Kansas Medical Center, Beth Schepker said she had seen all walks of life struggling to pay health bills.
"It makes me really angry at the health system," Schepker said."I wish that just for a second we could take a step back and look at the larger issue and that's that we have people suffering in this country when they don't necessarily have to be."
Her colleague at JayDoc, Chris Cassidy, second-year medical student, said the best solution would come from throwing out health insurance altogether.
"The first thing we need to do is stop feeding the beast, and the beast is health insurance," he said. "With the public option, the underlying problem is still there. We're still paying for way too many things and not getting anything out of them."
WHAT'S TO COME
The bills working their way through the Senate and the House have a ways yet to go before a final bill reaches President Barack Obama's desk, which some expect to be well into next year.
This anticipation leaves people like Willbanks and those at JayDoc at the mercy of the system.
"It doesn't make sense that the people who could easily pay their expenses out of pocket are the ones that don't have to," Willbanks said. "And those of us who can't pay our expenses out of pocket are the ones who just barely don't qualify for Medicaid."
While the United States faces a stalemate in the Senate over health reform, it remains the only industrialized nation without universal health coverage.
Renowned journalist and international health care expert T.R. Reid said the problems with American health coverage stemmed from the country's failure to make a moral commitment to provide coverage to every citizen.
Gina Burrows, Salt Lake City senior and president of Young Democrats, agreed with Reid.
"Health care shouldn't be a question," she said. "It shouldn't be a debate. It shouldn't be something we have to work for in an ideal world. I'm glad we're fighting for change. I'm just flabbergasted that it's having to happen."
HPV Fact #9: HPV often has no signs or symptoms.
There's something you can do. Visit your campus health center.