llho – The Transcript

Young Americans and the Affordable Care Act

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is changing the lives of millions of uninsured Americans by offering low-cost health care. Young adults in particular will benefit from the changes made by the ACA.

Young adults can now stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26-years-old. This is probably the biggest change in health care policy that will effect the younger population.

Prior to the enactment of the ACA, insurers could remove dependent adult children from their parents’ plan because of age, regardless if they were still in school or not, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Additionally, adult children who graduated from high school or college and who had not found a job were also left without insurance.

Gene King, the director of the Ohio Poverty Law Center, said this could cripple a young adult going into their post-graduation life.

He said he had to buy health insurance for his daughter after she graduated from college. He said it was expensive but manageable for his family’s budget.

“For many people, that would have been a problem,” he said.

“They couldn’t have bought insurance and that college graduate, who had done everything right: gone to school, finished college, headed out in the world, would have a gap in insurance. And that could have set up all sorts of horrible situations with pre-existing conditions and with substantial debt.”

The ACA has also put an end to lifetime caps and denial of coverage because of pre-existing conditions.

This is especially good news for young adults, who may have previously had trouble finding insurance after leaving their parents’ plans.

Young adults do not have to stay on their parents’ plans if their employer has better benefits or if they want to enroll in coverage through a health insurance Marketplace.

A Marketplace is a site where eligible citizens can enroll in health insurance through the federal (healthcare.gov) or a state partnership website.

The expansion of Medicaid in Ohio will also have an impact on young adults without parental insurance.

The expansion now covers anyone with an income that is 138% of the federal poverty level (about $15,000 a year).

A younger demographic enrolling in healthcare through the ACA could also help offset insurance costs.

Kathleen Gmeiner, project director for Ohio Consumers for Health Coverage at the Universal Health Care Action Network, said young adults were specifically targeted in enrollment campaigns.

“A lot of the effort has been to get young adults enrolled because they do bring to the Marketplace a younger, healthier demographic that helps the spreading of risk in the insurance plans,” Gmeiner said.

Despite these steps forward, Randolph Quaye, the director of Black World Studies at OWU and an expert in the sociology of health and illness, said the ACA is just the beginning of healthcare reform.

“It’s a first step,” he said.

“Obviously, the broader goal of addressing our health care concerns is really addressing the inequality of our healthcare delivery systems. We need to find a away of training more doctors. We also need to create an environment where people take responsibility for their health, so more preventative measures. That, I think, is part of the ACA.”

Young adults are, however, not exempt from the fee for not enrolling in coverage. The ACA required every adult to enroll in health insurance by March 31.

Any young adult who does not fall into an exemption will have to pay $95 or 1 percent of his or her income, whichever is higher.

Exemptions can be made, which range from not being able to pay the lowest-cost coverage to religious objections to incarceration.

#ShutItDown: Lulu isn’t just fun and games for any user

By Natalie Duleba

Managing Editor

A few weeks ago, a housemate told me about a new smartphone app called Lulu, and we both downloaded it onto our phones.

The concept is relatively simple: sign into your Facebook account to confirm that you are listed as “female” on your account, share your location and start anonymously rating your male Facebook friends. You can also find men from different areas to look at.

You search through men in your area, and you can favorite them as well as rate them. You can rate as a friend, a family member, a crush, a partner, an ex or a hookup.

Depending on what your relationship is to the person you’re rating, you can comment on different aspects of them. No matter what, you rate on appearance, manners, humor, commitment and ambition. If the nature of your relationship has sexual potential, first kiss and sex get added into the mix.

Your answers all boil down into a numerical value on a scale of 1-10, and any user can see a person’s average rating next to their Facebook profile picture on the dashboard screen and then can look at individual reviews and ratings by selecting them specifically.

As I was going through it, those who I rated I did so honestly, with good intentions and in a light-hearted manner. I wanted my guy friends to have high scores because they are good people.

What my housemate I spent the most time laughing about was the positive and negative hashtags you can give to each person you review. Positives include “#OpensDoors,” “#Giving…,” “#WillSeeRomComs” and “#LadiesFirst.” Some negatives are “#AlmostTooPerfect,” “#CheaperThanABigMac.” “#ADD,” “#WearsEdHardy” and “#PlaysDidgeridoo.”

They range from the sexual to funny to rude, but it’s possible to ignore the negatives of the app, especially when there are hashtags like “#CantBuildIkeaFurniture” and “#BurnsCornflakes” as a bad review. I certainly did at the beginning.

I soon grew bored of it, and the more I heard people talking about it (“Have you heard of Lulu? Yeah, I have a good score!”), the more I started to think critically about it and the message it was sending.

Most people seem to think it’s fine, that that’s there’s nothing really wrong with it besides the fact that it may be bordering on creepy. But if a similar app was going around that allowed men to anonymously rate women on their looks and sexual prowess, it wouldn’t be tolerated. It would immediately be called sexist, objectifying and morally wrong.

The thing is, Lulu is no different.

I thought it was funny and wouldn’t really hurt someone. But it’s anonymous, and we all know what anonymity does on the Internet: people get fearless and, more importantly, ruthlessly cruel. Look at any YouTube comment thread and you’ll see proof of it.

Not only that, but the options for rating men are disgusting. For the sex and first kiss sections, the answers that will result in a lower rating are mean and vulgar (“I think about sex with this person when…I don’t want to cum too fast.”).

Not only that, women can submit men problems they have in the “Dear Dude” section, and someone, supposedly a man, replies. Some of the responses are surprisingly supportable, with an attitude of sexual acceptance, honesty and bit of humor thrown in. But every one that I’ve read starts off really well and then ends on a sour note in some way: a stereotype, over-sexualization, aggressive language or a condescending tone.

It’s supposed to be “by women, for women,” but it’s hardly empowering. Yes, there is the initial rush of “I can say what I want to say about this person” in order to benefit other women who may encounter them at a bar, work or somewhere else. But it’s not evening the playing field, so to speak; it’s allowing women to belittle men with no accountability.

That’s not something anyone should be supporting. It’s not something even to be laughed at, as easy as that is given some of the response options (“The first kiss gave me…a lady boner/a mouth-gasm.”).

If you look at Lulu, really look at what the message is behind everything, that a person, in all their complexity, can be reduced to a number, is unacceptable.

A message that could save lives: the OWU alert

By Natalie Duleba

Managing Editor

A professor is lecturing in class, discussing politics or microbes or gender norms, and buzzing fills the air. More buzzing follows, maybe one or two pop song ring tones join the spreading noise filling the classroom. It’s alright to look at the phone, to listen to the voicemail. Because nearly everyone at Ohio Wesleyan knows it’s an OWU Alert.

The first OWU Alert of the semester went out to every student registered on Tuesday, Sept. 4. It wasn’t an emergency; it was the standard test to make sure the system was working properly.

From now on, any OWU Alert sent out will be about an actual emergency situation near campus. The university is required by the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act) to “make timely reports to the campus community on crimes considered to be a threat to other students and employees…that are reported to campus security or local law police agencies,” according to the act.

The Clery Act is named after a freshman student from LeHigh University who was raped and murdered in her residential hall in 1986. The Act was passed in 1990 as the Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act in response to crimes across campuses that were left unreported and the backlash that followed.

The purpose of the Clery Act is to keep students aware of potentially harmful situations and to “aid in the prevention of similar occurrences,” according to the act. Crimes that fall under the Clery act include murder, sex offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, manslaughter, arson and arrests for liquor law violations, drug-related violations and weapons possession. Universities are also required to compile and release annual security report, a crime log and crime statistics in addition to the timely warning system.

The university uses Connect-ED, an emergency contact system to send out all the OWU Alerts. Connect-ED is used on over 150 campuses nationwide as well as for secondary education, municipalities and state and federal agencies.

OWU sends out two to three alerts a year regarding emergency situations, ranging from persons at large to nearby shootings.

It’s up to OWU to make the call regarding whether an alert should go out or not regarding a situation. Bob Wood, Public Safety director, Cole Hatcher, director of media and community relations and Craig Ullom, vice president for student affairs work together to make the decision.

“We tend to go conservative,” Wood said. “If there’s a question of whether we should send one out, we tend to send one out to be safe.”

An OWU Alert can also go out to inform students of crime trends in the area that could be a threat to students on campus.

“If it’s imminent and on-going, we would send out an alert,” Wood said. “Distance from campus also comes into play. If it’s a couple of miles away from campus, we probably won’t send out an alert. But if it’s two blocks away, we will.”

The university began implementing the program in the fall of 2007, and has been using it consistently since 2008. Students can receive an email, a text, a phone call or all three.

“It’s my hunch that most students find out about issues via text message, which is very limited in size,” Hatcher said. “We try to add more details in emails and voice messages with the text letting people know the most basic details.”

In some cases, students are asked to stay inside their building until the situation can be resolved by Public Safety or the Delaware Police Department.

“We tell people to stay inside when there’s a shooter at large or if the suspect is confirmed to be either on campus or near campus,” Wood said.

In November of 2011, a man with silver paint covering his face robbed a pharmacy near campus and his cellphone was tracked to campus. For a few hours, students were asked to stay inside while the police and Public Safety tracked down the “Silver-faced Bandit.” Last semester, an OWU Alert was sent out after a shooting occurred in a basketball court blocks away from campus.

OWU Alerts can also be sent out for weather-related reasons or to cancel classes.

“We also will use it to share weather delays or closings to help everyone know quickly of the status change,” Hatcher said.

However, classes are rarely cancelled, and OWU Alerts don’t often go out because of inclement weather.

Currently there are approximately 1,570 people enrolled in the OWU Alert program.

“Only people with OWU email addresses may enroll,” Hatcher said. “Students, for example, are able to enroll parents; employees are able to enroll spouses and partners. This means the number of people being alerted reaches far beyond 1,570.”

Parents who receive the alerts often call Public Safety after receiving one, wanting to know what the situation is.

“We got so many calls last time that DelCom (the emergency service that answers Public Safety calls after 6 p.m.) almost shut down,” Wood said. “We’re probably going to add on a disclaimer at the bottom of the next alert, telling parents not to call us about the situation, but to wait for more information.”

Students, faculty and staff can sign up for the OWU Alerts and update their information through the myOWU portal found on the OWU website’s main page.