Sherman Dorn

Health insurance reform and college completion

I have yet to see anyone discuss the obvious relationship I see between health-insurance reform and education policy: health-related financial crises and college completion problems. There are many reasons why students leave or switch colleges, but one of them is the financial fallout from health crises of students and their immediate family members. Over the years, I have known about a number of students who have either cut back from full-time to part-time status or left college entirely because someone got sick (either them or a relative) and that left a huge hole in the family budget. Especially for first-generation, older students, many of whom have children, many of whom are going to college to escape the dead-end, no/low-benefits jobs they're currently in, this is a nasty catch-22.

I do not know the extent of the problem, but the discussion within higher ed often runs something like this:

• We know some students drop out because of health problems, either directly or indirectly from the financial fallout.
• We have college-sponsored insurance plans, but either the premium or the coverage is lousy because the only people in the pool are the people most at risk of having problems.
• Let's recommend mandatory health insurance for all students!
• Oh, shoot -- the legislature is telling us we can't, in part because we're already in a financial hole and can't subsidize poor students.

That's what happened in Florida: one university started discussions about mandatory insurance, another (Florida State) took the lead and mandated insurance, a statewide group at the university level continued discussions, and the legislature (this year) banned any university but the first mover (FSU) from mandating insurance.

I don't know the exact extent of the problem, but this is one of the reasons why I am bewildered that major business groups continue to oppose health-insurance reform that would create nearly-universal coverage. With assurance of coverage, people can go out on a limb and start new businesses, something that business groups always claim they want to promote. With the dramatic reduction of health-induced bankruptcy and financial crises, more people would complete college, something business groups say they want.