Cornell University graduate students collected signatures to send to the school in order to attract attention to the growing health insurance problem affecting many of the students and their dependents. The university offers graduate students enrollment in a student health insurance program, and many of their dependents are also eligible to obtain coverage this way but many students feel the cost is excessive.

Around 7,800 graduate students attend the University and bring with them at least 1,200 dependents, including spouses, children under the age of 19, and same-sex partners. Student premiums for the health care plan are a reasonable $1,434, yet their dependents must pay $3,149. Because jobs for graduate students at the university pay only about $20,000 a year, covering the costs of health insurance for a family can be nearly impossible.

After collecting about 500 signatures, the Mao Ye – the student-elected trustee – plans to present the petition to the Board of Trustees on October 19^th. Ye and others are also working on a health insurance plan that will be more affordable for graduate students and their dependents.

A survey released on January 8, 2008 of preventable deaths in 19 industrialized countries ranked the United States last when it comes to providing health care to its citizens.  The survey was conducted by the Commonwealth Fund, a charitable organization created to promote health care in the industrialized parts of the world.  Their study, which was called “Measuring the Health of Nations:  Updating an Earlier Analysis” and published in the Health Affairs journal this month, examined the death rates for individuals under the age of 75, particularly looking for problems that could have been prevented through more effective health care.

The same study had been conducted twice before:  once in 1997/1998 and more recently in 2002/2003.  Part of establishing the country rankings involved looking at each country’s improvement as compared to past studies.  While all of the other countries saw a decline in preventable deaths by an average of 16 percent, the United States’ rate only decreased by 4%.  The U. S. was also ranked last in the 2002/2003 results after placing 15^th in the 1997/1998 results.  Had the United States shown similar improvements approximately 100,000 deaths would have been prevented.

The survey’s top five countries included France in first place followed by Japan, Australia, Austria, and Canada.  The survey also pointed out the United States spends more on health care than do any of the countries with better results.