Unforeseen medical emergencies can be physically and emotionally devastating, but the idea of health insurance is that at least the consequences don't involve your wallet. Unfortunately for Krystal Kuczmera - now an LSA alum - she lost her health insurance one month before an emergency appendectomy became necessary to save her life. The operation left her $21,000 in debt.

This tragedy was made worse by the fact that Kuczmera was ineligible for MSupport - the University's health care charity fund - because she had had the option of buying University health care. While one could argue the merits of MSupport's eligibility requirements, the real problem is that situations like this are even occurring. The University should feel a responsibility to make sure all students have health coverage in the first place.

Kuczmera declined University health insurance because she was covered by her mother's employer at the time. But there are plenty of students who wrestle with the decision to accept the University plan even if they are not already covered. This is an understandable dilemma for a seemingly healthy college student - the University's subsidized coverage costs more than $2,350. It is difficult for economically disadvantaged students to choose between paying for basic college needs and paying for something like health care.

Programs like MSupport are designed to help the most desperate poor, so they disqualify anyone with access to subsidized health insurance from receiving this charity. The problem with this requirement is that it tries to separate the poor from the even poorer - both groups in need of affordable health care. The University's health insurance plan does little good if students are not financially able to select it. The plan is actually depriving students of help from charity funds because they had, in theory, the "choice" for subsidized health insurance.

A University-level solution to this problem is clearly necessary, but this doesn't change the fact that the state and the country as a whole are failing in their responsibility to provide affordable health insurance to all people. With any hope, a presidential candidate who understands the importance of federal action on this issue will win the White House in the fall. But until the state and federal governments recognize the basic human need for health care, the University must mandate health coverage to ensure that needy students can receive financial aid to help pay for it.

No student should be without health insurance. The University must adopt a policy requiring all of its students to buy University health insurance if they aren't already covered by their own plans. Mandating health insurance as a cost of attendance would mean that financial aid could help students who can't afford it. The University's insurance would decrease in price as more people enroll in it, making coverage even more affordable. Implementing this requirement is necessary to ensure that all of its students have access to health care.

When students must choose between spending money they don't have and winding up in an astronomical amount of debt, the University has to intervene. The absence of state and federal health care plans doesn't excuse the insufficient access to the University's coverage - this absence makes a University-level solution to the health care crisis more necessary than ever.