4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, October 13, 1995 ulE z £irittn 3itailg 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan MICHAEL ROSENBERG Editor in Chief JULIE BECKER JAMES M. NASH Editorial Page Editors BRENT MCINTosH MCINTOSH CLASSICS RollerbladA'zg: By anyone's I &measure, superhor to real 4fe Undess otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of a majority of the Daily 's editorial board. All other articles, letters, and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. A healthySiotmAet QuestionsMaboundvwithn SAhealth plan ichigan Student Assembly President Flint Wainess has brought the crown jewel of his agenda to the floor of MSA. His proposal to provide mandatory health insur- ance to all University students by a national carrier or local HMO is staggering in its complexities. The controversy surrounding the proposal exemplifies the changing role of MSA - rather than a little-known political body, it is becoming an increasingly relevant and powerful force in students' lives. The plan contains coverage for pre-exist- ing conditions, 10 visits to counseling cen- ters, outside psychiatric care and $1 million in catastrophic care, as well as a provision for outside coverage in the state of Michigan. The estimates of how much such coverage would cost arevague, ranging anywhere from $200 to $900. These prices are predicated on MSA's ability to get a fantastic volume- based deal from the University Medical Cen- ter and on the assumption that a large number of students would sign up. They also assume a cut-rate deal for a health-care administra- tor. With no administrator named, estimating fore implementing any plan, MSA must fur- ther study the needs of all students -not only graduate students - and the likelihood of a favorable arrangement from the Univer- sity Medical Center. Another glaring problem with the pro- posal is the localized exemption plan. To be exempt from the plan, students must be able to prove that they are covered in Ann Arbor. Someone served by a national carrier such as a mutual plan or Blue Cross/Blue Shield would be exempt if his or her insurance plan covered visits to an Ann Arbor doctor. How- ever, families with HMO plans in other cities would be forced to buy into the plan, as HMOs generally are restricted to local cov- erage in that area -forcing such families to pay for two plans instead of one. Families with coverage could waive the fee and pay less than they currently pay to UHS - a reduction in the fee to just $34 from $96.50. While this is certainly positive, it remains unclear where the figures come from and how UHS, as a provider, would be affected by the new plan. There must be something vaguely and pleasingly arrogant about rollerblading. Unlike every other able-bodied colle- gian in the known universe, I don't rollerblade. I'm not sure why, but I've never been caught up by the in-line skating craze. Nonetheless, I always view rollerblading as having a certain singular mystique. First, there's the wholeheight thing: when you put on 'blades, you suddenly gain six inches. And six inches is a lot - just ask John Wayne Bobbitt. You may be 5-foot-2, but rollerblades can transform you. Put them on, and you suddenly go from being Danny DeVito to starting at shooting guard for the New York Knicks. Having ajumpshot is not required of Knicks' guards. Second, there's the name of the things: "Rollerblades." I know they're supposed to be referred to as in-line skates, and I know Rollerblades is a brand name, with uninfringible copyrights and slick, Armani-suited lawyers ad nau- seam. "In-line skating," however,just steals the romanticism from rollerblading - it's a little like calling a towering home run "the act of removing a baseball to a far quadrant of a large ampitheatre." "Rollerblading" is cocky, fluid and a little brash. It's the footwear equivalent of rap music - except, of course, that people rarely get shot, and Shaquille O'Neal might actually be good at it. Rollerbladers virtually ooze superiority as they slide quickly by you on your way to class. They're so exponentially cooler than you that you'd think they were from New Jersey. When you, the pedestrian in a city of pedestrians, see someone you know but re- ally don't want to talk to, you-by virtue of the near total lack of momentum walking provides - feel obligated to stop and say things like "Hi, how are you? How's the family? Is Billy Joe still in prison? Yeah? Well, anyway ... you look great! You fi- nally went and had that nasty wart removed! Good for you!" The rollerblader, on the other hand, has no such obligations. It's like that Matthew Wilder song from the musically bankrupt 1980s: "Nobody gonna break my stride/ nobody gonna slow me down/Oh, no!/I've got to keep on moving." (You thought you'd never hear that song again, didn't you?) By the time you recognize someone when you're 'blading, and by the time they recog- nize you, it's too late. You barely have to acknowledge them. You're by them, with little more than a "Hey, whassup, dude?" That's another thing. Rollerblading makes even the most fastidious English speaker address others as "dude." It's part of the rollerblading culture. It is well-known in skating circles that the first time Rush Limbaugh rollerbladed, he commented, "It is difficult to imagine the momentum that is building up within my massive frame, dude. Not that I'm fat, dude. Hey, let's kill off the poor, dude." (Limbaugh's rollerblades later exploded due to excess structural tension, maiming several bystanders. Unfortunately, the talk- show icon was unhurt.) While the use of the term "dude" is also a facet of skateboard culture, the two cul- tures should not be confused. Rollerblading culture is decidedly and superlatively main- stream; skateboarding is exactly the oppo- site. Skateboard culture is about listening to music that sounds like cats scratching each other to death, having rings in parts of one's body that Bob Dole would have us believe do not exist, and wearing pants so big that drivers often mistake them for parking ramps and attempt to stash their Nissans therein. Another dichotomy between the two wheeled cultures is their respective reaction to crashes. Rollerbladers are never supposed to fall, slip, hit parked 1974 Buicks, mangle occasional squirrels, bloody themselves or others or otherwise provide any substantive clue that they are less than Greek gods. They are held to the same standard of excellence that we use for the president, Pete Sampras and U2. Skateboarding, by way of cohtrast, is centered on exactly those endangering-my- life-and-not-really-caring-type things. If a skateboarder doesn't hit a park bench, col- lapse into a crumpled heap of oversized clothing, then pop up saying "Wicked bail, huh, dude?" - and if that doesn't happen at least once a day - the skateboarder is se- verely chastised by his peers, who question his dedication to true edge-of-the-envelope skating and shun him in what anthropolo- gists refer to as a common tribal ritual. But enough about skateboarding. Skate- boarding is inherently inferior to roller- blading because of the number of wheels involved. That more must be better is obvi- ous, especially to those who drive monster trucks and think Texas is really cool. Besides, you'll rarely see a fraternity boy on a skateboard, while nearly every frat boy on campus has 'blades. And anything that frat boys do must be cool, right? - Brent McIntosh can be reached over e-mail at mctosh@umich.edu. EDITORS' NOTE bureaucratic costs now is little more than guesswork. There is a real need for some sort of health insur- ance provider beyond Uni- versity Health Service. Stu- dents who have an emer- gency during an evening or weekend when UHS is closed currently have to visit the hospital, which can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars. In addition, the UHS fee does not cover treatment for many pre-ex- isting conditions and the Heath Care for tU' Currently, there is little to model a public univer- sity mandatory health in- surance plan after - while plans similar in concept have been introduced at several places, few have seen implementation. Hence, MSA is essentially working with a blank slate. This could be beneficial - assembly members have the opportunity to fashion a plan exemplary among public universities. How- ever, there is also the po- Plagiarism is a serious problem at the University, and it should not be tolerated. At The Michigan Daily, we neither condone nor accept plagiarism. Recently, a column published on the Daily's Editorial Page came under scrutiny for its similarity to a column that had been printed in another publication. While the author, James R. Cho, has denied any intentional wrongdoing, he does not want the integrity of the Daily or of himself to come into question. For this reason, he has tendered his resignation. We thank James for his loyalty and dedication to the Daily. -Michael Rosenberg, Editor in Chie] Julie Becker and James M. Nash, Editorial Page Editors service is not staffed to handle emergencies beyond broken limbs. The idea of paying more and getting more in return is valid, and the plan addresses the need to revamp the current health system. Stabilizing UHS fund- ing and providing a means to cover students with little or no health insurance is important, as is improving student access to the Univer- sity Hospital and expanding psychological counseling services. However, a proposal as serious as "man- datory-with-waiver" health insurance must be examined thoroughly and carefully. First, whether MSA has the qualifications to un- dertake the project of insuring 36,000 stu- dents is in itself questionable. Second, al- though the plan has been presented under the expert advice of health care consultant Stephen L. Beckley, it contains numerous holes that leave many serious concerns about the validity of the proposed program. The plan sounds wonderful - but it is unlikely that its advertised price tag will hold up. Wainess' proposal is all-encompassing, and the costs for similar existing programs have been much, higher than his estimate. The $500 per year his plan projects would require a huge volume of student participa- tion. Given that fewer than 15 percent of the students Beckley surveyed lacked health in- surance, it is not certain that such a large group could be attained - especially since all students surveyed were Rackham stu- dents, who are not necessarily representative of the student body as a whole. The plan also assumes, perhaps prematurely, that Univer- sity hospitals will charge substantially less for their services. If either of these assump- tions prove false, costs could skyrocket. Be- tential for the proposal to balloon into a mess far greater than MSA or even the University can handle. The plan assumes that MCare, the University's faculty care plan, could ad- minister the program. But there is no basis to assume that the largely successful MCare program could apply to student health with- out greatly straining its current bureaucracy. Wainess and other supporters of the pro- posal are right to say that student health is an integral part of the University experience. Any development of the proposal will have to hammer out many of the details in a more convincing and concrete manner. Liberal exemption rules must be applied and the complexity of HMO coverage must be ad- dressed. Further, Wainess must determine what the extent of student influence in such a plan would be. Would a transformed MCare administer it solely? Would a student board run the program with University administra- tors? Will the University appoint a "vice president for health services"? Will there be an advisory board of health care specialists with student representation? Or is it best for students, for lack of expertise, to leave the debate completely? These serious questions need to be an- swered. If MSA is going to undertake a program as serious as health care, members need to take it seriously enough to recognize that implementing this proposal in any form will take months of debate and research. The plan could not possibly take effect before Wainess' term as president expires in March - meaning his successors must take the initiative for researching and finally imple- menting this complex yet crucial plan to insure students. JIM LASSER AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IT'S MAKIN C MY LOOK LIKE*.... L l < ; is so W COLLE6E KEd. " t . A, -AERCA SHARP AS TOAST - 'c.!I, I NOTABLE QUOTABLE "Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance." - Plato LETTERS Acquittal no cause for celebration To the Daily: If I were a battered woman, I certainly would not want James R. Cho, author of"Emotion battles intellect in reaction to Simpson verdict" (10/9/95), on the jury. His editorial is perhaps the most bizarre thing I have ever seen the Daily publish. He has the nerve to dance on the graves of two inno- cent people, sympathizing with Mr. Simpson on a level usually reserved for Holocaust victims and Bosnian refugees. While ac- knowledging Mr. Simpson's guilt, the author still felt com- pelled to celebratesthe acquittal of an abuser whom he himself believes terrorized and finally murdered his ex-wife along with an innocent man. He calls the verdict a victory for many blacks, Asians, Latinos and other minorities. Conspicu- ously absent from his list were women of all races and Jews. It would be tough trying to con- vince women that acquitting a possessive man who killed his wife in ajealous rage is supposed to empower them or make them of Nicole Simpson killed with such force that she was nearly decapitated, rained on my parade. He wanted to see Simpson "screw a system" that convicted U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds for statutory rape. Racism did not cause Reynolds' sexual misconduct;his own moral shortcomings did. The author then describes a feeling of despondency that re- sulted after the acquittal of the four police officers in the first Rodney King trial. He should be reminded that not everyone felt this sense of despondency. In fact, Mark Fuhrman might have felt that euphoria the author felt after Mr. Simpson's acquittal. The au- thor wanted to see Mr. Simpson walk away "unscathed," as if keeping him in prison for a year for a crime he committed was cruel and unusual punishment. The families of the victims have probably not been left unscathed, but the author doesn't notice this as he celebrates the fact that Simpson may gain a great sum of money in a pay-per-view special. The author also felt it appro- priate to take the moral high ground against the true evil, those who would limit illegal immigra- tion. The Contract With America has already been discussed, and the author would be wise to foot- ebrates the verdict as "our (his and other minority individuals') little victory." He is directly say- ing that the release of someone who he believes butchered two innocent human beings is a vic- tory, because of the discrimina- tion and oppression suffered by minorities in this country! Mr. Cho, I will assume you don't believe that what you think O.J. didwasright; however, given your belief that he's guilty, can't you see that declaring his acquit- tal a "victory" is saying some- thing almost equally abhorrent (namely, that you believe setting a brutal killer free is acceptable because he is representative of an oppressed race)? That's exactly what you've said, and by doing so you've sacrificed the ideal of justice upon the altar of race rela- tions; i.e. unjust verdicts are now victories as long as certain condi- tions are met. When you do this, you compromise justice for ev- eryone, white and minority alike, because true justice will only be served when each individual man or woman is held fairly and im- partially responsible for his or her own actions by the court sys- tem. Is it not far better to try to address issues that might make our society and justice system unfair than to turn the other cheek tion of myriad instances of indi- vidual justice, and that a failure on a small scale is not a victory for anyone, but a failure for us all. Steve Titus Engineering graduate student Funds needed for more than health care To the Daily: How outrageous that we con- sider a $250/term health care fee (while UHS already receives $96.50/term from each student) when Student Legal Services has been begging for years for an increased student fee of $4/term. Health care is important. The proposed plan offers many im- provements, including lowerper- service fees, expansion of psy- chological counseling services, improved access to the Univer- sity Hospitals system and stabi- lized funding for UHS. I agree that these measures represent tangible steps forward for student health, and feel strongly that every person has the right to physical and mental well- being. And, especially in light of the fact that members of my aae HOW TO CONTACT THEM Michigan Student Assembly Flint Wainess, President '_ '200 , 1Ininn