By Mabel Doge Luhan
Have you ever thought about all the things you can buy with $10? Maybe it’s not much, but most people in the CNMI spend over an hour of labor to earn that $10. Meanwhile, every year, every public school student in the CNMI has to pay $10 or so in tribute to the insurance companies — for no good reason.
I don’t often talk about this, but I do have a school-age son. You may think I produced him on some kind of whirlwind international tryst that strains credulity: no, darling little seven-year-old Reg is only the result of my ill-advised night of pleasure with Goodluck Jonathan in VIP Room 888 at Bae Tokyo. I’d planned for Goodluck to move back to Saipan with me, but Goodluck (I call him Lucky) said something about Saipan being full of garbage on the streets, vagrants on the beaches, thieves in government, and open cockfighting everywhere — it reminded him too much of Ghana, he said, with his usual generous laugh! Well, so, our son Regression To The Mean (Reg for short) was born in 2016, and had been raised by three Luxembourgish wet-nurses up until now, but it’s time for little Reg to start school now, isn’t it—
And so now, to register Reg for school, I am told I need to buy “accident insurance” or “medical insurance,” depending on who’s asking. I’m supposed to buy it from a private insurance provider, like Tan & Tan, ATan, Tan & Co, or one of the other totally independent competitors.
Really? I’m required to give $10 to a croney to send my darling Reggie to school? Isn’t school supposed to be free?
There’s no mention of this requirement in the PSS regulations:
https://www.cnmilaw.org/pdf/
I inspected the “school insurance plans” sold by Moylan’s and other Saipan insurance providers. They claim to pay out up to $2,000 or so if the student has an accident on school property. Well that would at least maybe cover the ambulance ride, wouldn’t it!
Has anyone in the history of the CNMI ever made a claim from this school accident insurance? Has this accident insurance ever paid out to anybody?
Or does anyone have any legal justification why students are required to have this insurance? And “In the Philippines…” is not an answer, nor is “At college…” We’re not in the Philippines, and this is K-12, which is free by law.
More saliently, kicking working families in the taint with a $10 donation to croneys — plus the time and gas to buy that useless certificate — is not what we need anytime, but especially not what we need in this economy. I would expect the new, non-croney-loving governor and legislators to do better.
So why is this insurance mandatory in order to enroll at PSS? I mean, I know why it’s mandatory: because the insurance big boys asked for it, just like how my one time lover Goodluck (I replace the L with another letter to compliment his bedroom skills when I’m feeling a bit full of beans!) ran his beloved Nigeria. But I mean why don’t our supposed public servants give the CNMI’s families a break and get rid of this $10 yearly school tax? If anything, when schools really want to have insurance like this, the schools pay for it themselves, rather than requiring it from parents registering students at school.
It’s not unthinkable for some parents to delay their kids’ registration simply because they can’t spare $10. Yes, I know: “those parents should cut back on the poker and meth then.” Nice advice, but no matter how much you finger-wag at the parents, the fact remains that those kids won’t be registered for school because of that $10. Other parents believe their kids have real health insurance after paying this $10. Aren’t they in for a treat when their kid is sick, or even has a serious accident!
Get rid of this absolutely predatory regressive school tax. Let the insurance companies scrounge for their $10 just like the rest of us do. Leave the croneyism to Goodluck and his ilk back in Nigeria. Meanwhile, I’m scheduling little Reg for a back-to-school balayage!
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Mabel Doge Luhan is a woman of loose morals. She resides in Kagman V, where she pursues her passions of crocheting, beatboxing, and falconry.
