Two pages of buffoonery.

3/17/2010 1:28:39 AM

SEE SLIDE 6 HERE:
http://www.fis.ncsu.edu/rm/budget_central/documents/budgetforum_web.pdf

3/17/2010 1:31:12 AM

Quote :

" And $6/month IF you don't already have insurance is nothing."

which company do you have that it is only 6/month. The cheapest I've ever seen was like 60/month for a fairly dry-bones policy.

3/17/2010 2:26:50 AM

Quote :

"In an unrelated story, alumni donations have plummeted."

Since when do NCSU alum donate money?


Personally I think this is a good idea. While I was a student I had a major illness come up that basically would have caused me to drop out of school if I hadn't of had insurance. Before the illness I was healthy as a horse. You don't know what can happen in regards to your health and $62/month can make the difference between staying in school or not.

Of course, it's sad that people even have to worry about such things in our country I'll miss my gubnet healthcare when I get back to the US.

3/17/2010 2:34:42 AM

Quote :

" You don't know what can happen in regards to your health and $62/month can make the difference between staying in school or not"

That's absolutely true. But the flip side of that is $62/month can make the difference between staying enrolling in school or not.

Quote :

"You're too dumb to be in college if you can't figure out how this affects more people than just yourself."

Perhaps you misunderstood. You should re-read both of my posts. I'm not in college. I've already graduated. Had a job that was good, but I didn't like all that much. Left for a better job that I like more. And I've taken and passed various grad classes. So according to your logic, I can figure those affects out for myself. And for the most part I believe I have... as my previous post suggests. He assumed I hadn't even considered the impact it had on others. I had and have again, I just simply decided that the positives outweighed the negatives. Or another way to look at it would be that the negatives of me not having a college degree far outweighed the negatives of me not having health insurance for a period of time.

I was just curious to see if he had anything that I thought was actually good reasoning or even better, would cause me to make a different decision if I was in that position now. I'm not so arrogant to think that I've thought of everything out there regarding any topic. But I'm also confident enough to think that I may be able to shed a slightly different perspective on it than what he or you may have already considered.

But what I really would like to hear a good argument for, is how my risk taking had such a negative impact. Keep in mind that I hadn't needed medical attention for anything that wasn't my own fault for 8 years prior to my not having insurance. And that I didn't need any medical attention in the 4 years that I did not have health insurance.

I'm also curious if you or the other kid do absolutely nothing which benefits you and your immediate family more so than "society."

Quote :

"And $6/month IF you don't already have insurance is nothing."

Where are you getting this number from? If I'm missing something and it's just $6 a month... that makes a huge difference. But the number I saw was $744 a year. Which is $62 a month. If I'm wrong about that, just let me know where you saw the $6 a month so I can check it out. And I've priced out health insurance in the past, I've never found any for $6/month.

And don't be so quick to make assumptions about the eating habits nor life styles of others. That's the kind of thing that can set you up for a situation, regardless of context, in which you really look like an idiot.

Quote :

"The funny thing is that the GOVERNMENT is paying the majority of the cost of your education. They could double, maybe triple your tuition, and tax payers would still be footing the bill for the majority of our educations at State."

Are you're certain of that?

Let's say the budget is $100 (to keep it simple), and we'll use the numbers from the chart you provided

2 dollars from federal funding
14 dollars from auxiliaries
15 dollars from tuition and fees
23 dollars from grants and contracts
46 from state appropriated funds (taxes and such) -- keep in mind that residents and their family members have been paying towards this for possibly decades whether they have directly benefited or not (directly meaning attended one of the schools in the unc system). And out-of-state students pay a much higher tuition rate than in-state for this very reason.

Total = $100

so - double tuition and fees and the total = $115 46/115 = 40% /= majority - it's the biggest chunk, but not the majority.
triple = $130 46/130 = 35.4% /= majority - it's not even the biggest contribution at that point.

And maybe in this case, the budget stays the same. So the state simply pulls some of what it's contributing. tuition = 45, everything else stays the same, state funds = $16 = hardly the majority.

Perhaps I'm missing something here though and you can enlighten me.

[Edited on March 17, 2010 at 11:10 AM. Reason : .]

3/17/2010 11:07:32 AM

People will always bitch when tuition goes up, even though tuition costs in NC are insanely cheap. Doesn't really matter what those tuition increases are for. I know I bitched every year they increased my tuition as a student

3/17/2010 8:26:08 PM

that's definitely true regarding the bitching. But i don't think that's the issue here for anyone who has a problem with it. Although, I'm sure it is for some. But even then, I think it would be justified to complain. it would be about a 25% increase in tuition and fees. And for all intents and purposes, that's exactly what it is for those who would have otherwise went w/o insurance.

3/17/2010 10:37:17 PM

Tuition went up over 100% during my time at NCSU.

And if you don't want their plan then you can get another one right? Couldn't you tack onto your parent's plan or get a cheap single plan?

3/17/2010 10:42:25 PM

100% is pretty wild, but i guess not impossible if you were there a while.

But the real issue for me, and i think most, is that I don't see how it is they feel justified in mandating that students have insurance. I'm also a bit skeptical of how clearly any data suggests that having insurance is so crucial in regard to completing school (i'm not questioning correlation - but I'm definitely skeptical of causation). And even if the data does support it, I'd like to see how it compares to the impact of price of tuition on attendance/completion to begin with - meaning, how does quiting school due to medical expenses compare to not attending in the first place because of the higher cost of getting in.

And let's say that the data 100% supports their claim. So now they dictate that you must have health insurance (which is not required by law) to attend the university. What's to stop them from saying that students cannot buy homes?

Think about it: You have your own house, but no higher ed. degree, so you're attending school. If money gets tight but you still make enough to pay your mortgage, just not both pay the mortgage and continue with school, what do you do:

A) keep going to school to finish your degree and stop making mortgage payments/sell your house

B) Hold off from school for a semester or two and continue to make mortgage payments

That situation is no different from the reasoning they claim is behind this policy. The cost of medical bills could cause you to hold off on school. The cost of your mortgage could cause you to hold off from school.

Would a "no home-owner" policy be as palatable as a "must be insured" policy?

To me, one is no more of their business than the other.


To answer your question; sure you can get your own. But it's still going to cost you.

As far as getting on your parents' plan, it depends on the student's particular situation. Insurance companies typically only cover dependents to they're a certain age, and then a little longer if they're in school. But there is almost always (always afaik) an age which they'll stop covering you whether you're in school or not. - which was the situation I was in when I opted to go uninsured for a few years.

[Edited on March 18, 2010 at 1:37 AM. Reason : .]

3/18/2010 1:34:56 AM

Quote :

"100% is pretty wild, but i guess not impossible if you were there a while."

Was only there 5 years so not that long.

Quote :

"But the real issue for me, and i think most, is that I don't see how it is they feel justified in mandating that students have insurance."

I think they show their justification pretty clearly. They believe that by making sure each student has insurance, it will insure students don't drop out of school because of medical bills.

Quote :

"What's to stop them from saying that students cannot buy homes? "

Apples and oranges. You choose to buy a house. You don't choose to become sick (I hope ).

And really, the university can mandate just about any rules it wants for its students. If a student really has a beef with them, they can always transfer to another university that doesn't have the same rules.

To summarize:

Quote :

"FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS"

[Edited on March 18, 2010 at 3:52 AM. Reason : .]

3/18/2010 3:51:57 AM

What years were you in school?

Not that the tuition aspect really matters all that much. This is not an increase in tuition to cover the operating costs of the universities. That would be very different. This is a costly, non-education related, service which students are being required to have in order to attend.

Quote :

"I think they show their justification pretty clearly. They believe that by making sure each student has insurance, it will insure students don't drop out of school because of medical bills."

My original words were poorly chosen. There's no doubt that it's their choice to have any rules they want, and that they're justified in doing so. But why start prying into students' lives in that respect? -- their reasoning is to improve completion rates. And it's under the guise that students will now have insurance, and thus will be more likely to finish. Not so much that students without insurance will be denied attendance - although, that's true too.. right? It'd be a lot different if they were simply providing an inexpensive insurance plan for those who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it.

And simply because they CAN, that doesn't mean they should. It is definitely their right, but I will stop supporting them. And yes, I do contribute financially via donations, as well as by purchasing season tickets for various sports. If I find this policy to be unreasonable, I'll stop supporting all of them in every way possible. - not that they'll hear/feel that impact, but I'll stick by it no less.

Quote :

"You choose to buy a house. You don't choose to become sick"

That's true... but if anything is, that is apples and oranges. you can choose to have insurance or not. At least I did when I was a student and I could today if I wanted. And most Americans who have the means to afford insurance, have the choice to be insured or not. But more importantly, you choose to get medical attention or not. The treatment, not the ailment, is what medical insurance covers and is what is supposedly costing people so much money that they have to drop out. So while you can't choose whether or not you're sick (although you can do things to prevent it), you choose both to have or not have insurance and to seek or not seek treatment. I choose whether or not to see a doctor just like I choose to pay to live somewhere or not.


And let's say it really wasn't choice, is having a domicile any more of a choice (I'd say it's less of choice than seeking medical attention for many things)? You have the option of being homeless, my guess is that you choose to pay to live somewhere - whether it's rent or a mortgage. And my guess is that you would choose to do that over a lot of other things if it really came down to it. Poor people choose to not go to the doctor because if they did they wouldn't be able to afford their rent or utilities. The UNC system is now prioritizing their lives for them.

For me it was living quarters > school > insurance. Simply because school was temporary. If I could finish,the insurance would be more likely to fall into place. now insurance isn't something I worry about in the least bit. Partially because I have a job that provides good insurance. and partially because even if that weren't the case, I can afford insurance fairly easily. That's a direct result of me not having insurance for a few years and putting that money toward school. If I hadn't, maybe i'd have insurance or decent insurance now... maybe I wouldn't. I know a lot of people without degrees.. they have significantly more health and insurance woes than those I know who do have a degree. It was a temporary risk for a long-term gain. I feel like students should be able to make that choice.


I'm just concerned that even though they think they're helping, the amount of people they're hurting by preventing them from getting the education they would have otherwise may negate the benefits or at least make them negligible.



I went 12+ yrs without being sick beyond a slight cold - which I personally don't waste my time nor a doctor's time for in order to get looked at. I went about 6-7 years without needing any medical attention at all -- Having or not having insurance didn't play a role in the least bit in my ability to complete school, at least not in the way they suggested. If I was forced to have insurance in order to attend school, it would have forced me to not attend school and not finish. simply because I wouldn't have been able to afford both.

I'd like to see the data they used. I'm assuming it's serious injury and illness that causes people to stop school in that situation. And I want to know specifically, not-insured vs insured who actually incur medical expenses. And I want to know how that compares to the number of students who don't complete school or have to take time off to save money because they have to choose between school and basic necessities - Like health insurance, or paying rent or a mortgage.

I've been searching for that sort of information since I first saw this. If i find something, regardless of what it suggests, I'll gladly share it.

Quote :

""FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS""

So true, but really missing something: NOT First world, middle class problems. That's why this won't matter. Because this has such little direct impact on the students on their parents' insurance. Which the majority of college students are. To most, this is just another check box on a form and a photo copy of an insurance policy. But it can be a big difference to the people who's lives could be most impacted by going to college or a good college over a lesser college or no college at all.


You can say it's just bitching and all that, but nobody got ahead by being happy with what they had or without wanting more. I think this is making it, unnecessarily, a little more difficult for those people trying to improve their station in life and that of their kids.

3/18/2010 2:12:42 PM

the university of california system requires students to have health insurance -- i went to a uc for grad school and assumed that was the case for most schools (didn't really notice it wasn't required at nc state, i guess, as i was on my parents' insurance)

though in just googling around about this, in 2008 apparently only 30% of universities required full-time students to have health insurance: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/03/31/insurance

and here's a press release from 2000 when uc made it mandatory: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/students/healthinsurance.html

[Edited on March 18, 2010 at 2:36 PM. Reason : ]

3/18/2010 2:36:11 PM