Posted on 02/13/2018 12:01:42 PM PST by Academiadotorg
And predictably put the blame somewhere else. "Also, the premium increases for health insurance they want from us will cost us about $600,000 every year," Martin Kich of Wright State University writes on the academe blog maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in a broadside against his university's administration. "Right now, we pay about $1.8 million."
"$600,000 more would be a 33% increase! On top of higher premiums, they want to cut health benefits via increased co-pays, increased out-of-pocket maximums, and increased coinsurance. Needless to say, cuts such as these harm people who are already sick, defeating the purpose of insurance. And these cuts will fall more heavily on the lower-paid faculty. This is the plan they want us to accept! All told the cuts they want from us would save the administration $2.1 million every year--would cost us $2.1 million every year, the equivalent of a 4% cut in pay to the Bargaining Unit as a whole–-and to repeat, the majority of the cuts will fall on people who are sick, and for low paid faculty it will be a double whammy."
To be sure, many of Kich's claims about WU's overseers are probably legitimate. We've certainly encountered empire-building administrations before and frequently written about them. Yet and still, every particular he lays out about the increase in health care costs and the decrease in actual coverage has been an experience the rest of us in the non-academic world have been experiencing since, well, since Obamacare's mandates went into effect, when, to paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, we found out what's in it.
There is a bit more to this story. WSU faces a major deficit and enrollment crisis, with the state of Ohio very close to putting them on financial watch. Their austerity measures are either necessary or a crisis not going to waste as they retrench. In addition, several high administrators have been fired (may also be some legal actions) related to operations of their research institutes wing. I don’t know all the details but it might have something to do with shenanigans on H1B visas.
Yeah...welcome to the REAL world.
Insurance before Obcare $430/mo
First obcare, worse insurance at $800
Second year $1000
This year $1200
Still horrible compared to private insurance
AFFORDABLE Care Act
They love oxymorons.
As an alum of WSU (MBA-1987 w/national honors), it had a superb business school that was among the 25% nationally accredited.
However, since then the university has had a series of Presidents that would fit perfectly at UC-Bezerkley.
I seriously wonder if we can turn this country around without a “purge”...
Maybe they should pass on the costs to the students...Yeah another tuition hike or fee for the facility.
Except it ISN’T the real world. It is a world of political machinations. The REAL world allows people to sell what they want to sell, and buy what they want to buy. (Or not buy as the case may be.)
And remember - this isn’t about health insurance - it is about government run health care. It won’t be long before the liberals come to the conclusion (which was anticipated when obamacare was passed) that “insurance is too expensive, and medical bills are too high. Those insurance companies and doctors are making too much money and ripping us off. The government should be doing it instead!”
ahh, so this is the official smokescreen, meant to build sympathy and knock the real news off the front page
I have a suggestion for the author, tho. If he feels that badly that poor faculty are being hit harder than himself, he can always volunteer to pay their premiums for them
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