The Daily Iowan

Working for a living — and health insurance

A 58-year-old Iowa City man has Stage 4 chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, an intense respiratory failure that requires him to rely on an oxygen machine around the clock and prevents him from working. Much of his costly medical expenses for this disease, widely known as COPD, aren’t covered by his health insurance.

So, 59-year-old wife Debby Bell uses her health benefits as a University of Iowa employee to cover the cost of his checkups, prescriptions, and medical machines that supply him oxygen and stimulate normal breathing.

Discrimination persists in the classroom

Racial microaggressions occur every day in classrooms, and our campus is no exception. It’s time to recognize this unequal treatment and become an institution of tolerance here at the university by educating instructors and students about subtle racism that still occurs in everyday life.

Students and faculty need to be educated on what this toxic and systemic racism looks like in order to prevent ignorance and avoid discriminating against minorities.

Stigma surrounding self-injury must be eradicated

We must start having conversations about how to respond to the discovery of someone you know or love who harms herself or himself or has suicidal tendencies — what is appropriate and what isn’t. The perspective that people who harm themselves are doing it for attention is incredibly judgmental, and the impression that the people who struggle with these tendencies or thoughts are selfish is just wrong.