Not so sexy surcharge

This year Student Health Services will be adding several fees for a few illnesses that require testing for verification. Those fees are for a battery of the most common tests for sexually transmitted infections and will cost $50 for men and $45 for women. While such a fee is commonplace because of the associated testing costs, the question remains: Why would VCU find it appropriate to add a surcharge on top of the already considerable health fee? It seems rather irresponsible to charge extra for STI testing with college traditionally being a locus for sexual experimentation.

While I’ll go as far as to say that these fees are an incentive to use protection and exercise sexual restraint, the crux of the issue here isn’t that VCU is charging more for health care. It is that the university is appropriating these STI’s as separate from other common illnesses. Ultimately it comes down to cost; if there is a fee for STI testing at the health clinic, then VCU must be inundated with enough cases that between every student’s health fee, there is not enough money to cover all student lab costs.

Another puzzle in this series of fees is the cost of testing itself. Is VCU nailing students to the wall with a $50 fee? The answer is a resounding, “maybe.” After contacting several other Virginia universities, it seems VCU is charging neither more or less than other large universities, but is squarely in the middle of a wide range of STI lab costs. If anything, the meaning of the fee’s size echoes the larger debate on national healthcare. Basically private companies apply complex and often arbitrary equations of risk to a person’s lifestyle (the student lifestyle in this case) and then hands down a cost to the consumer that reflects a profitable margin for the company.

In this case, because each college has a different lab contract, the results are disparate. It costs $10 for a herpes simplex test at Virginia Tech and $116 for a similar test at University of Virginia.

Ironically Student Health Services is also a victim in this because it makes no profit on STI testing. The tests are contracted to a company called Labcorp that was assessed as the cheapest test supplier. Like in the national private health care system, companies discriminate service by assessing who can pay and who can’t. Right now this company has determined that based on what VCU’s needs, $50 is the most they can charge.

As costs go up, companies will likely find reasons to charge more. VCU was the last major university to add a surcharge to STI testing, eventually relenting to the fee under the combined weight of cost and the status quo.

What is more is that this attempt to contain costs actually puts students at greater risk. If a student thinks they might have chlamydia (which may not show symptoms for weeks or months) they might hesitate to pay 50 dollars on a student budget. In the meantime if that student continues to have multiple sex partners, the STI spreads to other students.

According to Student Health Services, when STI testing was still free for students, 8 percent of males and 4 percent of females at VCU reported a case of chlamydia, and that is not including those cases that went unreported or were reported outside of Student Health. What will the number show when each student has to dole out fifty bucks “to be sure” about an asymptomatic illness?

Student Health Services is designed to diagnose and treat common and curable illnesses that students experience while in college. According to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control earlier this year, it was concluded that 19 million new STI cases occur each year, and half of them affect 15-24 year olds. If Student Health Services thinks that it is saving some students money by putting STI testing into separate fees, then it is also responsible for discriminating the costs of health service to students that are sexually active or are the victims of sexual abuse.

You have to take everyone’s health into account when it concerns sexual conduct. While it might seem cost effective to make those who use specific services pay for them, at college we are a little bit close for comfort. Unlike other boo-boos you get at college, you can’t blow on this one to amek it better. STIs are a health concern that put all students at risk. VCU should make the tests free or raise the general health fee.