THE
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
M I S S O U R I
S T A T E
U N I V E R S I T Y More than 100 years in print
Volume 107, Issue 23 | the-standard.org The Standard/The Standard Sports
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Insurance enrollment deadline looms
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After March 31 open enrollment period, enrolling in a plan should be ‘limited to life-changing events’ By Rose Marthis The Standard @Brose_Marthis
The first few months of 2014 have brought many changes, including an issue that affects everyone in the country — health insurance. With the new Affordable Care Act by President Obama, there is an initiative to get young adults insured for health expenses. The Affordable Care Act was enacted in October 2013 to make advances in better quality healthcare at less expensive prices so more Americans could be insured. According to healthcare.gov, 40 percent of the residents in Missouri who were uninsured in October 2013 were 19-34 years old. “My personal thought is that the push to get young adults insured is so strong because young
people have less claims and less medical expenses,” said Georgia Cable, the manager of eligibility services with Mercy Hospital. Young adults are allowed to stay on their parents’ medical insurance plans until the age of 26. If a person doesn’t have this opportunity and is uninsured, the open enrollment period for anyone to apply lasts until March 31. After March 31, enrolling in a plan should be limited to life-changing events, such as turning 26, Cable said. When the time comes for young adults to get their own health plan, they can do so through the Missouri insurance marketplace, a website that groups all of the available plans and lets consumers compare prices and coverage, much like the travel websites for hotels and flight tickets. This is what senior early childhood education major Anastasia Samocha will have to do when she turns 26 in four years. She is currently on her parents’ plan and is grateful for having that help for expenses. Samocha knows that she will need to get her own coverage either through her job after graduation or some other method and realizes how important it is in our society. “While I don’t currently pay for my own insurance, I do hold it at a high priority for the future. I have a pre-existing condition that, without
Health care
How can you enroll in an insurance plan? • Be on your parents’ health insurance — you’re already enrolled. • Go to healthcare.gov to see what plans you can apply for. • If you don’t apply now, you can’t get private insurance until the next open enrollment period.
u See HEALTH CARE, page 10
Former Missouri State student pleads guilty to seconddegree murder By Nicolette Martin The Standard @nicoletteemma
Former Missouri State student Austin Pelley pleaded guilty to seconddegree murder on March 10 in the death of 2-yearold Benjamin Garrison. The guilty plea came as Pelley’s criminal setting was scheduled to begin. Following a request for a continuance, Pelley withdrew his prior plea of not guilty. Pelley’s case begain in September 2012 when Garrison died shortly after being left in Pelley’s care. Benjamin Garrison was the song of Pelley’s then girlfriend Chelsea Garrison, whom Pelley had been dating for two to three months at the time of Benjamin Garrison’s death. According to the probable cause statement filed in September 2012, Pelley’s neighbors said they heard two loud thuds in Pelley’s apartment similar to “a sack of potatoes being thrown onto the ground,” but thought Benjamin Garrison had possibly thrown something on the floor. Chelsea returned to the apartment an hour after leaving Benjamin, after she “got a weird feeling” about her son and decided to go check on him, according to the statement. When she arrived, Benjamin was unconscious and died later at Mercy Hospital from head injuries. Pelley was initially charged with seconddegree murder and abuse of a child. According to court documents, Pelley was sentenced to 11 years in prison without probation.
Diversity at MSU: a lofty, worthy goal By Briana Simmons The Standard @SimmonsReports
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Senior chemistry major Alaa Abdelhakiem studies in the Plaster Student Union.
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Imagine walking in a classroom, helping yourself to a seat front row center, and awaiting the class to look to you to provide your perspective on the day’s topic simply because you fit a certain description. Not every encounter is this way, but Chelsea James, a freshman business major, said as the only black student in many of her classes, her white counterparts would sometimes look at her as if she was in the wrong place. With plans to transfer in the fall, James is dissatisfied with the lack of motivation for some students at MSU to become more diverse. James challenged black organizations to host events with other cultures in mind and actively participate in campus activities with predominantly white organizations and vice versa. “Diversity is not something that can happen overnight; however, I do believe that if
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there is effort on all ends, then this campus can be more diverse and accepting of other races and cultures,” James said. But it is not a black or white issue. Students like Yanan Zhang, a sophomore foreign exchange student from China, also wish to experience more diversity at MSU. “Sometimes I’m so nervous. It’s kind of a little burden for me, but maybe diversity will help me relax in class,” Zhang said. Feeling like an outsider and as if he didn’t have a place at MSU, Derell DeRamus, sophomore nursing major, decided to get involved and make the best of it. “It surprised me, almost, that there were so few minority students on campus. I also noticed that the few minority students on campus segregated themselves from the general population,” DeRamus said. Three years ago, Ashley Wallace, senior criminology major, transferred to Missouri State from a historically black college in St. Louis. Wallace said there is a greater sense of unity amongst the diverse population because u See DIVERSITY, page 10
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