FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 2010 • PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY • VOLUME 64, ISSUE 59
Event of the day Join the PSU Friends of History for a screening of World War II film Go For Broke. The film will be followed by a documentary and is free to attend. When: 7 p.m. Where: Cramer Hall, room 494
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INSIDE OPINION
SHAC and SHAB work to save students money and provide better coverage Stacy Austin Vanguard staff
This concludes our broadcast day PSU-TV deserves a chance to flourish PAGE 4
ARTS
Portland State’s voluntary student health insurance program is in a death spiral. At a Student Senate meeting held on Tuesday, several options were discussed, including pooling students from several Oregon universities and better educating students on the plans available. A presentation to the Senate on student health was led by Mary Beth Collins, executive director of the Center for Student Health and Counseling (SHAC), Nick Walden Poublon, chair of the Student Health
Student health insurance is sick Advisory Board (SHAB), and Jessica Cole, assistant director of SHAC. PSU health insurance, currently underwritten by Aetna Life Insurance Company, provides two different plans: basic and supplemental. Walden Poublon explained that the basic plan is a “bare health insurance” and not for “catastrophic” injuries. The supplemental plan, which was previously called the extended plan, is preferred for “outside doctors and emergency room visits.” Walden Poublon explained that the supplemental plan offers
benefits students may have similarly experienced from their parents’ or employers’ health care plan. SHAB explained that since students who utilize the supplemental plan often need and seek expense health care, the insurance providers lose money each year, causing rates to increase or coverage in the plan to decrease, in order to stay affordable. Over time, it appears that fewer students enroll in the supplemental plan as prices increase, decreasing the pool of money available to students, which is why insurance providers lose money and are forced
to increase rates. This is the “death spiral,” Walden Poublon said. The challenge is to make the supplemental plan more affordable and attractive to students, so more will purchase it, thus creating a larger pool of money available for everyone’s health care. The board hires independent insurance consultants to get quotes from various insurance companies, and then negotiates the contract of each year’s health care plan. Walden Poublon explained that Aetna
SHAB continued on page nine
A look at terror outside and within New memoir by Nick Flynn is well written and jolting PAGE 5 Marinara as good as mamma’s The gift of pasta sauce that keeps on giving PAGE 6
Insurance assurance: ASPSU Senate listened to representatives from SHAB and SHAC about
All photos by Marni Cohen/Portland State Vanguard
the challenges facing student health insurance and possible fixes at Tuesday’s meeting. What would Whitman do? Oh Captain, My Captain sails the seas of serenity PAGE 7
NEWS Campus Connections News for students, by students PAGE 8
SPORTS
Some headway and some hurdles A progress report of three ASPSU Senate campaigns Tamara K. Kennedy Vanguard staff
ASL campaign
Mixed feelings Starting with this weekend’s road trip the Viks will be playing without Nelson PAGE 10
P.V. Jantz has worked since the 2008–09 school year as a student senator. The campaign he chose to work on was concerned with moving American Sign Language from the Hearing and Speech Department to the Foreign Language Department. He has succeeded in the first step of the plan. “On Dec. 17, 2009, Dean Marvin Kaiser [of the School of Liberal Arts] told me he made a decision to move ASL to the foreign language department and was working on a business model that will be implemented fall term 2010,” Jantz said. He said he wants to make it clear that this was not accomplished alone and that support has been overwhelming from both deaf and
hearing students and from people in the community. He initially failed while using traditional means to switch ASL to the Foreign Language Department, so he changed tactics to nontraditional means—Jantz held an ASL Comedy Night with ASPSU and other sponsors. About one week after holding the ASL Comedy Night event, where attendees were asked to submit e-mails to Kaiser, Jantz received a message from the dean. Kaiser noted his surprise at the number of e-mails he received, and then set up a meeting with Jantz. According to Jantz, Kaiser wanted to clarify that ASL’s departmental location at PSU was not a personal issue but a policy issue. “It was a policy issue but became a personal issue after being ignored,” Jantz said. After this contact, Jantz met with Kaiser on a monthly basis to discuss the issue. Kaiser put in a lot of personal work reading papers and speaking with the experts Jantz brought to him, including Steve Nail,
SENATE continued on page nine
Liana Shewey/Portland State Vanguard
ASPSU: Senator P.V. Jantz (top left), Senator Pakou Xiong (top right), Admin. Dir. Eddie
Hallman (bottom left), Senator pro tempore Daniel Lyons (bottom right).