Students got up one by one and shared their health care stories in front of the audience. Some directed their words at the two officials present. Some talked to the small crowd in front of them.
All of them shared stories of struggles with health, health insurance and being a student while having to deal with it all.
At the IU Healthcare Town Hall, experiences shared included struggling to find low-cost insurance as a person with pre-existing conditions and the constant worries from graduate students about having consistent coverage. Some also called for universal health care at state and national levels.
Campus Action for Democracy presented the town hall event Wednesday night, which revealed the complexity of health care today through student testimonials and officials’ responses.
Kathryn Lehman, Ph.D. student, has been employed by IU at various points as a graduate assistant, associate instructor and course instructor. She said the health insurance offered through IU to her during those times was good, but the problems came when she was not employed by the University.
“Because I have a pre-existing condition, the experience of switching between insurance plans or potentially having a lapse in coverage is really difficult and I was very naive about what that would look like,” Lehman said.
Students talked about the lack of insurance companies the IU Health Center accepts. In response to this, Pete Grogg, executive director of the IU Health Center, explained some of the financial details behind the Health Center.
The IU Health Center, Grogg said, is entirely funded by students. No funding comes from the University. The mandatory health fee each IU student must pay makes up 55 percent of the budget and is what keeps service fees so low, Grogg said. A routine medical office visit is a flat fee of $45 at the IU Health Center.
Currently, the center is contracted with Blue Cross Blue Shield and Aetna Student Health for their insurance providers. The center is not a provider of Medicaid or Healthy Indiana Plan.
“We intentionally do not enroll in many health insurance plans and the reason why is that there’s an extreme administrative burden that is placed on us to file claims, to collect payment from insurance companies and the staff that may be required would be enormous,” Grogg said.
Grogg shared about his own son’s struggle with Crohn’s Disease and how he and his wife worry about their son’s ability to get health insurance with a pre-existing condition when he can no longer be on his parents’ plan.
“It’s very concerning, and I completely appreciate what you guys go through and the stories that you’ve told because my wife and I experience it now and we worry for our son,” Grogg said.
Grogg said they don’t advertise it, but they will work with students who do not have the means to pay for a health center visit and do not have insurance to cover the cost.
“When a student needs care, they will get care,” Grogg said. “We’re here to help you be successful and that’s the bottom line.”
Ph.D. candidate Carrie Fudickar shared her frustration about the United States government not offering universal health care. Fudickar has two kids and they were both born in Germany while her husband was getting his Ph.D. there. She said they never had to pay for their children’s health care in Germany.
“I believe that no child should ever have their health be determined by their parents’ wealth,” Fudickar said. “I think that’s abhorrent and that’s evil.”
Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, was at the meeting and talked about the political side of health care. He emphasized that the lack of providers that take the Healthy Indiana Plan, government provided health insurance, is an issue that needs to be dealt with. Other problems he addressed were the lack of mental health providers and professionals dealing with the opioid crisis.
What he emphasized most was the importance of being actively involved with making change. He encouraged everyone to vote.
“The people that are struggling the most, the people who need the help the most, the people who should be demanding that their government do something to improve their quality of life and address their needs, they’ve checked out,” Pierce said. “In the political world, that means you get ignored, you get left behind.”
