On the morning of Jan. 28, 2005, Virginia “Ginger” Lee
had no idea a visit to Student Health Services would lead
to years of battling sickness and high costs to complete
her higher education at VCU.
Although Lee was uninsured, student-health physicians
sent her to the hospital where, after five hours in
the emergency room, she was sent home with pricey
prescriptions to treat what doctors thought was bronchitis.
The following evening, Lee was rushed to the hospital
again. This time, she was placed in intensive care for
more than a week.
Lee was diagnosed with a rare lung disease that causes
the outer-air pockets of the lungs to harden and lose their
elasticity, which makes breathing difficult.
After she left the hospital, Lee faced an incurable disease,
a total cost of almost $90,000 for a week in intensive
care and uncertainty about whether she would be able
to return to classes.
“I was happy I was alive, but I wanted to go back to
school,” she said.
Lee never had health insurance, and has always worked
multiple jobs to provide for her family. Because she had
never gotten sick or needed hospitalization before, Lee
used to figure she could survive without health insurance.
In the past, other costs took precedence – until now.
Lee is an example of what can happen to a college
student who has no insurance. To avoid situations like
hers, VCU sponsors hospitalization insurance for the 20
percent of its students who are uninsured.
The insurance has been offered for nearly 15 years, but
VCU has had a difficult time getting students to sign up,
said Betty Reppert, associate director of Student Health
Services. Because of this, she said, the university has had
trouble negotiating costs with insurance companies.
Student-only coverage with GM Southwest is costly
because the insurance companies do not profit when
only a few thousand students are registered.
“Generally, those are students who really need the
insurance for enduring health problems, and they spend
a lot of the insurance company’s money,” Reppert said.
Every year, a committee meets to review the health
insurance offered by VCU and brainstorms ways they can
encourage students to sign up, Reppert said.
“There’s not enough healthy students signed up for
the insurance to bring the overall cost down, and the
cost is usually what scares most students away,” Reppert
said. “If all the students enrolled, it’d be much cheaper per
person.”
If it had not been for Virginia Coordinated Care (VCC),
Lee would probably have had to work the rest of her life
to pay off her medical bills and would never have had the
opportunity to return to school, which she hopes to do
next spring.
The VCC, Reppert explained, is a safety net for Virginia
residents with catastrophic health issues.
The program is described in a University News Service
press release as not an insurance program, but instead a
“focus on preventive care to improve the overall health
of uninsured patients using the VCU Health System …
providing a continuum of care to patients who often only
see a doctor when they are very sick.
Reports from the Congressional Budget Office in July 2007
state that since 1995, emergency-room rates for persons 22
to 49 years of age have risen 11 percent. Those 24 to 44
years old also represent the highest number of emergency
room visits at 33,232 per year.
“You think health insurance is an expensive fee – wait
until you go to the hospital. You may have to drop out of
school,” Reppert said. “We’ve had people drop out and
have to work to pay off their medical bills. That’s the dark
side.”
Lee was one of those students. She was advised by her
professors to withdraw from classes and submit a refund
waiver to the university so that she would not have to pay
the total cost for a semester of classes.
Lee was still charged for half a semester’s tuition. Her
refund totaled $160, and by the end of the spring semester,
she learned she had lost her federal financial aid eligibility
and would need to look for private funding to pay for any
future schooling.
According to the VCU Web site, students who withdraw
from classes before completing 60 percent of the semester
will have to pay all or a portion of the financial aid funds
that were given to them by financial aid. They also might
be responsible for all or a portion of their university charges
that were previously paid by financial aid sources.
While trying to pay off her tuition for last semester, Lee’s
illness sent her to intensive care once again, increasing her
medical bills and the probability she might never return
to school full-time.
After receiving her medical bills, Lee applied with VCC
and was approved. Now that her medical bills are adjusted
to her income, she can routinely see a specialist, and she
pays no more than $4 for prescriptions.
Lee receives her medical treatment at VCU Health
System.
“I don’t know what else I would’ve done if it had not
been for MCV,” Lee said.
Lee is saving up money to return to VCU. She said she
looks forward to going back to school, but with two or
three years left to complete, she is worried her illness might
interrupt her studies again.