To the editor:

Mark Hirschey, Andrew W. Chandler Professor of Business at Kansas University, is pleased with his health coverage and with the cancer treatment he received. I’m happy for Prof. Hirschey and truly glad that his prognosis is so positive. I have to wonder, however, if Prof. Hirschey would be so pleased with the American health care system if he was making $11 an hour at a company that doesn’t provide health insurance, instead of his salary of 8.5 times the federal poverty level (for a family of four) at a state institution that offers excellent health benefits. I also wonder if Prof. Hirschey’s health prognosis would be so positive had he not received the $300,000 in medical care for which he paid only $2,200.

Of course, as a tenured professor, Prof. Hirschey also will never face the sudden loss of his job — and his health coverage. Unfortunately, approximately 10 percent of the population has found out in the past two years how tenuous our present system of employment-based health care coverage is.