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February 13, 2008, 11:10 AM ET
'But I Need This Class to Pay for Chemo!'
(Crossposted from howtheuniversityworks.com)
In a couple of recent posts, I raised questions about the Democratic candidates’ health plans — Obama’s really won’t cover many people and Clinton’s enthusiastically endorses tiering of care.
As we move closer to the likelihood of an Obama presidency, isn’t it time to start moving the candidate toward repairing the shortcomings of his health-care plan?
His plan is simply unlikely to do much for faculty members serving contingently, such as Nancy Welch’s colleague at the University of Vermont, who has taught in the English department since 2000. Most often, he’s been given three courses each semester. But UVM calls him ‘part-time,’ which means that he isn’t eligible for UVM’s health-insurance plan.
As a result, he pays $356 each month for an individual insurance plan, with a deductible of up to $18,750 a year. He also has cancer and has just gone through a second round of chemotherapy, for which each infusion carried a bill of $8,200. At this point, he’s teaching literally to save his life — to pay these medical bills.
While crying too poor to insure the health of their long-term employees, top campus administrators have whacked up their own salary pool by 207 percent in 5 years.
While Welch doesn’t hold UVM administrators responsible for rising health-care costs, she holds them responsible for raising their own wages and spending on facilities while “consistently, increasingly and, I believe, deliberately underemploying the faculty.”
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