Cat Cobb
For many NC State students, the start of the semester means moving back to campus, attending Wolfpack Welcome Week, applying for part-time work and tackling their first assignments. While a new year can be exciting, often the onslaught of activities can lead to stress and fatigue, which can frequently lead to illness.
For many sick students, Student Health is a great service. It’s relatively easy to get an appointment, the program offers specialty services such as Campus Smiles, and the option to fill prescriptions at an on-campus pharmacy helps students save time. However, for some NC State students, there are numerous barriers to accessing on-campus healthcare.
Student Health requires students to either enroll in the campus health insurance program, Student Blue, or waive out of the program by documenting their own health insurance. This insurance policy, which began in 2009, is enforced by the entire UNC system after a ruling by the UNC Board of Governors. If a student cannot waive out of the program, a charge of approximately $1,300 will be applied to their account.
This policy directly harms students who have Medicaid. According to the 2018 statistics on N.C. Medicaid, approximately 18% of all N.C. residents are enrolled in Medicaid, encompassing around 1.8 million individuals. It is reasonable to infer that a percentage of these individuals attends NC State. Direct statistics on Medicaid enrollment at NC State are unknown.
Student Health’s relationship with Medicaid on campus is rocky at best. Student Health gives students the option to transfer prescriptions from off campus while they have refills left; however, for students with busy schedules and potentially limited access to off-campus transportation, it’s not necessarily fair or realistic to expect these students to travel off campus to refill their prescriptions.
Having students wait to find a practitioner off campus that will accept Medicaid adds another barrier to healthcare. Transportation can be expensive or inconvenient, especially if the student is new to the Raleigh area, and the situation can cause students great stress, especially if they’re in pain.
The issues with health insurance within the UNC System reach beyond Medicaid. For some students, the insurance fee is a prohibitive cost to attending NC State.
The logic doesn’t quite hold. If a student cannot afford to provide their own health insurance, they may also not be able to afford the $1,300 in mandatory fees. Students who do not waive this fee will be automatically drafted for this expense.
A possible solution would be to utilize a payment system in which students who do not waive out of Student Blue would pay monthly increments. These requirements would potentially be more feasible for students and their families to meet. Another alternative is for the Board of Governors to elect to remove the mandatory insurance requirement entirely and use an out-of-pocket system if there was ever a need for the student to attend Student Health.
For students on Medicaid or without health insurance, campus health can be a challenge, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Student Health should find ways to better work with Medicaid and uninsured students to ensure that students have access to all required healthcare. Healthcare is a right, and if NC State wants to keep the pack healthy, we have to ensure care is truly accessible.