As controversy over health care reform legislation continues to build, students on both sides are anxious to know how a public option will affect them.

According to Tom George, communications director for the College Democrats, the health care bill would benefit students. Mainly, children will be able to stay on their parents’ health care plan until their 27th birthday, and those with childhood illnesses would not be qualified with a “pre-existing condition.”

Senior government and politics major and College Democrats Campaigning Director Mike Besser has begun to feel the pressure from his insurance company.

Besser was diagnosed with testicular cancer at 16. Despite being in remission for six years, his family has begun to receive letters from his insurance company warning Besser to begin looking for other options.

“Health insurance companies are obviously about making money, so they want to get rid of the people that cost the most money. Given my past history, I’m pretty expensive,” said Besser.

Luckily for Besser, he has a job lined up after graduation that will provide him with health insurance.

“Most people in this country get insurance through their employers,” Besser noted. “It’s kind of a backward system because if you don’t have a job, then you don’t have insurance….and that’s a terrible situation.”

Senior Katie Napoda, a business and sociology major, is one of those students who worries how the current job market will affect her health care coverage.

Napoda, who plans to graduate in December, is hoping that she will find a job to cover her health care.

“There is a lot of pressure to have a job when we graduate, other than just for a salary,” she added.

Napoda is currently covered under her mother’s health care plan until she is 23 years old.

But with her birthday just a few months away, Napoda is unsure what will happen if she is unable to find a job.

While she does support the health care bill, Napoda admitted that she was not sure how it would affect her personally.

“I have really good coverage, and I just don’t want to lose my options,” she said.

Vice President of Public Affairs for the UMD College Republicans, Clyde Thompson, echoes similar concerns.

“Nobody knows how the government will handle being an insurance company,” he said.

Thompson, a senior majoring in criminology and criminal justice, argues that the health care bill does not solve the problem, that health care is “unaffordable for a lot of people.”

“The government is trying to go around insurance companies. We want insurance companies to offer better prices and services for everyone,” he said.

Thompson, a Navy veteran, argued that the federal government already does a poor job of handling health care.

During active and post-active duty, he was prescribed pain medication from a car accident. According to Thomspon, after President Obama took office, he was switched to arthritis medication.

“Is this better? Yeah, I’m not paying for it, but it’s not helping either. It’s not solving the problem,” he said.

University Health Center Director, Sacared Bodison, is concerned about how the public option will affect the Student Health Insurance Program (SHIP), which offers an alternate option for students without health insurance.

“The way the [health care] plan is currently written, we would not be able to offer SHIP because it is not considered an individual or group plan,” Bodison said.

Bodison also fears that if the health care plan passes, students would opt for poorer coverage than what they could have previously received with SHIP.

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