Editor:

I appreciated Dr. Neil Kochenour’s efforts to explain his take on the health-care debate (“Why students need health insurance,” March 21).

His letter helps explain the benefits of having health insurance and the effects of early treatment of disease. I, too, feel everyone should have access to health care.

What the letter did not do was answer Karen Shaw’s specific question, which was: “Why should the U mandate a hard-waiver program?”

In other words, what interest does the U have in my health-care coverage?

Kochenour asked the following question in his letter: “Why shouldn’t U students be required to carry health insurance?”

I would like to answer this. Faculty, graduate students and others who spend a great deal of time on campus are already enrolled in the plan. So, implementation of the hard-waiver plan will largely affect undergraduates.

The U is a commuter college. A large proportion of the study body lives off campus, drives to school, spends a few hours on the property and then goes home.

I already pay tuition, which entitles me to take classes at the school and be a “student.” So this added financial burden is a result of my spending a few hours on the property of the university?

I don’t think an institution of higher learning has any business in the health-insurance status of its students.

The job of the university is as stated in our new mission statement; education, knowledge, research and dissemination of such knowledge to the world. I am here to learn, and the U does a great job of teaching me. The U should continue to focus on what is intended to do and what it does best-educate.

Michael CupelloSenior, Sociology