Obamacare Hits Academia, Hard!

Campus Report ^ | June 3, 2014 | Malcolm A. Kline
They were among the biggest cheerleaders for Obamacare: Now they are learning, the hard way, that the predictions of the law’s naysayers are largely coming true. For example, Obamacare’s enthusiasts mostly dismissed the warnings of analysts who predicted skyrocketing health care costs once the law went into effect. Flash forward. “Faculty leaders will push the Board of Trustees to add at least $1 million to the University’s budget to cover more employee health care costs after two years of skyrocketing out-of-pocket payments,” Mary Ellen McIntire reported in the GW Hatchet on May 12, 2014. “The Faculty Senate blasted administrators for cutting about 10 percent in funding for the University’s health care benefits over the last four years.” “Meanwhile, health care costs for employees rose nearly 25 percent since 2012.” The GW Hatchet is the student newspaper at George Washington University. Meanwhile, too, teachers’ unions may have lustily cheered Obamacare’s passage but school districts are now struggling to comply with its mandates. Many of the thousand or so waivers that the Obama Administration granted various entities to delay implementation of the law went to school districts. Now that they’ve run out, these districts are in full panic mode. Mark Benigni, superintendant of the Meriden Public Schools in central Connecticut testified before Congress last year on the law’s impact. “Are we supposed to lay off full-time teachers so that we can provide insurance coverage to part-time employees?” Benigni asked the U. S. House of Representatives Education & the Workforce Committee. “If I had to cut five reading teachers to pay for benefits for substitute teachers, I’m not sure that would be best for our students.” “Benigni told ASBJ that he is sympathetic to the law’s intent of expanding health insurance coverage and improving the health of all Americans, particularly the poor,” Lawrence Hardy reported in the American School Board Journal. “But there is no denying the potential impact on his district.”