Poor blind baby

Poor blind baby," I thought to myself one day last January. The company that managed my apartment building had placed a notice on my apartment door.

It informed me that a one-year-old baby boy was suffering from an eye disease that had robbed him of his vision.

This sightless one year old was the son of one of the maintenance workers employed by the company that managed my apartment building. His only hope of ever seeing again was eye surgery. The notice said the surgery would undoubtedly place a financial hardship on the baby's family. Could we, the apartment dwellers, make any donations?

My sympathy for this baby was accompanied by anger-anger at "the system."

I live less than a mile from the Duke University Eye Center, affiliated with a Department of Ophthalmology ranked eighth in the country by U.S. News & World Report. Yet, for this baby to access the type of services offered at such a medical facility, his family had to go broke and beg for money. This one year old was so close, yet so far, from the help he needed.

I couldn't help but remember this blind baby when Bill LeFew, president of the Graduate and Professional Student Council, announced at the Oct. 24 GPSC meeting that next year the Graduate School would subsidize health insurance for doctoral students who receive stipends from Duke.

I was excited about this development, which was in part due to GPSC's commendable work on the issue. But I also couldn't help but be reminded of how much of an inequitable patchwork quilt of a healthcare system we have in the United States.

It's a patchwork quilt because some of us have access to affordable healthcare, but some of us do not. Some workers get health insurance through their employers, but some do not. The elderly and some of the poor can obtain government-subsidized healthcare through Medicare and Medicaid, but the rest of us cannot. At Duke, qualified Ph.D. students will now get a health insurance subsidy, but master's and professional degree students will not.

And what happens to us once we graduate? If we don't immediately have jobs that provides health insurance, we can try applying for a private plan. Forget about paying a reasonable monthly premium, or even being accepted into a plan at all though, if you have anything in your medical history that might make you a financial risk, such as having hay fever, being treated for anxiety or injuring an knee during your college years.

Students on their parents' plans can often stay on that plan for up to 18 months by paying premiums out of pocket, which were around $310 monthly for me when I graduated from college in 2002.

There's always the option of going uninsured. Last year I had a physical. The bills from my doctor and the lab that performed my blood tests totaled $562. I paid $92. My insurance company paid a "negotiated rate" of $86. If I hadn't had insurance, I would have been out nearly $600! (Is it any wonder why people forgo preventative healthcare?)

Clearly, the American healthcare system is dysfunctional. I'd suggest some solutions, but most are politically unfeasible until a critical mass of Americans goes bankrupt from medical debt.

Meanwhile, we'll continue to have poor blind babies.

Preeti Aroon is a graduate student in public policy. Her column runs every other Wednesday.