March 31 marked the enrollment deadline to sign up for coverage through the federal health care exchanges set up through Obama’s health care reform law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as Obamacare.

Under the law, individuals must carry health insurance plans that meet federally mandated coverage guidelines. The administration, which has yet to release the official enrollment numbers, is claiming to have signed up 8 million people through the federal health care exchanges.

For the health care system to be viable, the administration needs 38 percent of enrollees to be between the ages of 18 and 35. This is because those in the 18 to 35 age bracket will be subsidizing the low-cost coverage the president guaranteed to the elderly, those with pre-existing conditions and those who primarily use catastrophic insurance.

Kathleen Sebelius, former Department of Health and Human Services secretary, recently announced via Twitter that 35 percent of the 8 million enrollees the White House is touting are under the age of 35.

This number is misleading, as it includes those who are younger than 18 and are carried on their parents’ insurance plans. Reports suggest the actual number of enrolled individuals who fall within the age demographic is 28 percent, short of the percentage needed. This most likely means that premiums, already high under the plans available through the federal exchange, will probably increase yet again.

Many states refused to create exchanges, meaning many are forced into buying a policy through the federal exchange. And the policies there are a misleading numbers game. The benefits are offset by incredibly high premiums, especially for the young and healthy, termed “invincibles.”

This puts young people between Scylla and Charybdis. One the one hand, it is now illegal to not carry health insurance, and those who don’t are subject to a hefty penalty. On the other hand, the federally approved policies are expensive, more so for invincibles than for other demographics.

The structure of the health care law penalizes young people simply for their age and relative good health. It puts economic restraints on those who are in not in a position to deal with it. For the most part those within the 18 to 35 bracket are either in or just out of college. They are not economically stable. And even if they are, why should their efforts underwrite the costs of others? The health care law creates a system that disincentivizes effort.

More than that, it perpetuates a system wherein society feeds off the young. Because they have the longest lives and the greatest chance to earn, they are penalized. And in doing so, undermines their chance of ever gaining economic stability. In a generation, the current invincibles will be the ones who need subsidies. This is a circuitous, cannibalistic system. It is not only illogical but morally wrong.

The idea that individuals who are stable should have to sacrifice some of their good fortune to those who are in a less prosperous position is not novel. It is a collectivistic strain of thought that the West has long shied from because at its core, it is immoral, as any who has ever experienced the pride of being able to get something for their efforts immediately recognizes. The repudiation of such thinking ought to carry through to the health care system.

FirstClass is one of the banes of the University of Maine student experience. Particularly at the moments when access to the platform is most critical, the server always seems to be down. This year, the first day of classes hadn’t even expired before the university email had crashed.

The school’s contract with FirstClass runs out within a few years, leaving two choices: renew the contract with a system that is unreliable, outdated and generally causes unhappiness, or seek out a more promising system. Given the student body’s collective unhappiness with the performance of FirstClass, it makes sense that the university would chose the latter course of action.

There are a myriad of uses for FirstClass — email, academics, organizations — but mail and online classes are also currently provided by systems already utilized by the university. Student organization communication is currently being tested with OrgSync, a platform for organizations that mimics popular social media.

OrgSync is designed to mimic social media platforms, like Facebook and Linkedin. Users will be able to “like” events or organizations that appeal to them. These are familiar features for students and should help provide a seamless transition, as well as improve on FirstClass’ inconsistent, often clunky interface.

Ongoing problems that students must confront include passwords needing to be changed every few months and users needing to constantly refresh their login. And of course, the server is notorious for crashing.

But perhaps most inconvenient, under the current system, organizations must renew permission to use their folder through the IT department each year. It is simpler for groups to create a new folder each year. This means that, as membership changes, re-additions to folders must be made, frequently causing students to miss announcements and events for the organizations they choose to participate in.

OrgSync would have none of these disadvantages.

And as an email system, FirstClass is redundant. All students already have email through the university’s Google account. Maintaining two separate accounts just causes greater confusion.

As an online classroom, FirstClass is also superfluous. Aside from the challenge of adding students to instructional folders, which is at times difficult, the system has trouble reading certain types of file formats that students may need to upload to complete coursework.

Blackboard has far fewer of these issues.

OrgSync would primarily benefit campus organizations, which are most affected by FirstClass’ need to renew folders every year. From this perspective, it makes sense to transition the system.

At the moment, participation in OrgSync is purely voluntary. Students can choose to sign up with the company. University of Maine Student Government is interested in helping students create an account and then gauging the feedback. Before declaring OrgSync the platform of the future for students, they want to ensure students are more satisfied with it than with FirstClass. Until the university’s contract with FirstClass expires, no one will be forced into the system.

But even if OrgSync turns out to be nothing it promises and has glitches, it can hardly be more of an inconvenience than the undependable service meted out by the erratic whims of the FirstClass system.

April is a great time to be around the University of Maine: The snow is finally melting, the weather is getting warmer and students can finally go outside to enjoy the wealth of non-academic benefits going to college in Maine presents before cramming for finals begins. At UMaine, this season has come to be associated with Chickenfest, a musical event semi-secretly organized by students looking to let loose and enjoy themselves.

But Chickenfest has gained notoriety, and not the good kind, among the public. Drug use, sexual assault, underage alcohol consumption and property destruction are all actions that have occurred at the event in years past. The location of the event is kept closely guarded until the carefully orchestrated reveal, but it usually takes place in a rural area, making it hard for police to respond to potentially serious crimes. This makes not only the police very nervous but the public, too.

And they have a right to be nervous, because the actions that transpire at the party affect them. Not only was last year’s event marred by suicide but cleanup cost Maine taxpayers an estimated $30,000. The landowners also closed off their property to the public due to the destruction;everyone lost the privilege to enjoy the beauty of Maine due to the actions of a few. Trials for those convicted of drinking and driving also cost the public money, as does the overtime pay of officers dispatched to the area to make sure no serious accidents occur.

Public safety is the prerogative of the police. But in situations where law enforcement isn’t present, it’s up to individuals to make sure that no one’s health is endangered. This means that students who choose to attend and participate in Chickenfest need to be aware of what’s going on around them and think about how their actions might affect others. And, although no one wants to be the one who ruins the party by calling the police, it’s much better to have safety guaranteed than to have the event marred by tragedy, as it was last year. The illegality and extremity of many of the actions surrounding the event are what fuels public condemnation.

Everyone wants to be able to have fun and enjoy the diverse benefits of being a member of the UMaine community. After all, students work hard and deserve a chance to enjoy themselves. But it’s important to do so without interfering with anyone else’s well being, whether that is in the form of the public’s ability to enjoy Maine’s rural beauty or the understanding that getting behind the wheel after a few beers can have serious consequences. No student wants to have their college experience, academic or extracurricular, tarnished with a serious mark on their record or their conscience.

It’s all right to go out and cut loose with friends. Just remember that actions carry consequences, some of them rather serious.

The last month in the semester rarely passes without presenting some unexpected — and for most of us at this point, unwelcome — tests of our stamina. As if there weren’t enough tests to contend with already. We begin to bargain for our sanity: If I stop trying so hard for A’s, will it really hurt my GPA that much? Is it too late to trade in my grade for a pass/fail? Maybe I should hold off on applying for that internship… there’s just so much paperwork involved.

The frustration of maybe having fallen a little behind, coupled with the emotional whiplash of on-again, off-again warmer weather patterns, starts to wear on a student. Add a dash of no-vacation-for-the-rest-of-the-term bitters and it’s enough to make anyone wake up with a headache Monday morning. Don’t squander your final weeks of potential productivity — here are a few mid-semester mantras to help you soldier bravely on:

Prioritization is the key to your success.

Success is in the eye of the beholder — decide what “successful” means to you, and don’t settle for less. You’d only regret it.

Procrastination is your enemy. Re-watching Season One of Twin Peaks may seem like a defensible coping mechanism now, but those 48-minute intervals will be more useful to Future You three weeks down the road, writing your final paper.

If you start to get overwhelmed, ask for help. Pro tip: It is always better to do this before a due date rather than after it.

No amount of coffee will make up for too much lost sleep. Log sufficient hours at night to keep you productive during the day.

Treat yourself to a little something to make yourself feel appreciated. Do this in a way that will make you want to make yourself proud. In other words, along with the new Strokes album, buy a fancy notebook and swear to make lists of assignment due dates and daily tasks.

Side note: Take these tasks one at a time.

It’s been a long winter; the warmer and sunnier it gets, the more tempting it is to blow off your scholarly responsibilities for something more instantly gratifying. A measured dose of this can be a great cure for Cabin Fever, but beyond that you’re just digging yourself a hole that will be just the right size to trap you as you peek out and see the sun growing higher overhead, while your friends play Ultimate on the Mall as you watch from a tiny library window, while you try to cram a few last terms into your head before you run off to take the final you didn’t have time to study for the night before because you were finishing that paper that’s five days late — AAH.

Download and review those long-neglected lecture slides. Print off fresh (revised) copies of your syllabi. A little extra push now will mean smoother sailing through the end of the semester.

When life gives you lemons, use your textbook buyback money to buy oranges instead.

The disappointment of not seeing a great big crowd-pleaser of a headliner booked to perform at the University of Maine this semester has begun to fade. With so few weeks left in the term, it’s time to let go of our grudges and channel that energy into something positive, like preparing for finals, finding summer jobs and making housing arrangements for the upcoming academic year. In the grand scheme of things, the money you might have dropped on a semi-satisfying concert ticket could be better spent on gas, groceries, rent or — wait — How about choosing from a host of diverse event options that will be within a reasonable driving distance of anywhere in our great state, over the course of the summer?

Chances are slim that booking one big show in a given semester would please a majority, or even half, of students, whereas the strong and diverse talent that will be visiting Maine — primarily Portland and Bangor — during the window of our summer break is sure to offer at least one show each varying listener would find wholly worthwhile. From hipsters to metal heads, cowpokes to alt-rockers, folksters to children of the ’90s, UMaine students will not want for good music, so long as they’re willing to travel at least as far as Bangor’s Waterfront.

On top of the panoply of concerts scheduled to be performed at the Waterfront and at Portland’s State Theatre, the Bangor Daily News will be sponsoring, developing and executing 12 events over the course of the summer, which might also merit attendance from those with related interests. The BDN’s event schedule — which features events also primarily held in Bangor and Portland — includes several comedy routines, as well as sports, food and fashion-themed exhibitions and festivities. For some time, Maine, tucked up in its own corner of the country, was off the beaten path for headliners such as Sting and Kenny Chesney. A lack of adequate audience and suitable venues subjected many Mainers to head to Boston for bigger and better things. Now, depending on the weekend and your interests, comedians, artists and musicians are figuring out why we all have stayed here this long.

Here’s the bottom line: A lack of university-sponsored entertainment this season doesn’t mean that opportunities are scarce, nor that information regarding these events is hard to come by. Rather than resign yourself to a summer vacation laden with listless Netflix-ing and hitting the same old bars every night of the week, reach out — you won’t have to reach very far — and grab hold of something a bit more extraordinary. Try to ensure that by the fall, you’ll be all tuckered out and ready to settle back into a routine. Your future self will thank you.

With January marking the second birthday of the University of Maine’s Tobacco-Free Campus Initiative, it seems an appropriate time to encourage UMaine Public Safety to employ the only style of rule-enforcement truly effective with any 2 year old: strict directives with clear consequences.

Based on the responses of a sample of 100 UMaine students, there is generally perceived to be less cigarette smoking on campus since the initiative’s inception. However, because there is a significant number of smokers who continue to do so, the initiative is still only seen by about half of the sample group as being “effective.” The fact that a significant number of students continue to smoke on the grounds, albeit typically in an unobtrusive manner, suggests that the “ban” is beheld more as gentle discouragement.

Dean of Students Robert Dana claims that the purpose of the initiative is not to police students and punish them for tobacco-related infractions, but rather to protect those students who have chosen not to use tobacco from being unwillingly subjected to it second-hand, and to provide an opportunity for tobacco users to stop smoking.

This is a nice idea; but whether the intent of the initiative is to punish or to support, the fact is that a set of consequences has been outlined for an escalating series of violations. If those consequences are not consistently imposed on people who choose to disregard the rules that are in place, it is no wonder that people ignore them and continue to clandestinely consume their cigs in certain on-campus locations.

Holding the threat of punishment for smoking on campus over the heads of UMaine community members may seem like an undesirable task, and will undoubtedly be met with distaste from the student population. But, after only two years of the ban — and one year of its “enforcement” — it may be the singular way to communicate to students that it is even remotely in their better interests to comply. Leave it to the 10- and 12-year-old initiatives to inspire rational and responsible self-governance. At this point, half of the students at the university remember when smoking outside was entirely acceptable, and where old habits die hard, addictive habits die harder.

As a university, we are no longer on a continuum, slowly inching away from smoking inside classrooms and buying cigarettes in the bookstore. We have reached the other end, where we’re supposedly cracking down on tobacco use and eradicating it from the entire campus property for the sake of public health. It’s time to fish or cut bait. Roughly 60 percent of students interviewed answered that they do believe UMaine should be tobacco free, so it would seem that as a population we generally support the enforcement of these regulations. So don’t hold back: Show the scofflaws the UMaine administration isn’t just paying lip service to public health.