Hope that you don’t have an allergy to schadenfreude, because this is the pure stuff: ” For years, Harvard’s experts on health economics and policy have advised presidents and Congress on how to provide health benefits to the nation at a reasonable cost. But those remedies will now be applied to the Harvard faculty, and the professors are in an uproar.” Turns out that adding mandatory procedures and extra coverage costs money; so does the ‘Cadillac tax’ on high-end plans like Harvard’s. So Harvard went and passed those extra costs to policy holders – like everybody else did – and said policy holders are, well, freaking out.
Seriously: to quote Oscar Wilde’s famous witticism, you would need to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the way Harvard professors are reacting to the news that they now have deductables and out-of-pocket limits and co-pays and all the rest of it. And it just gets funnier and funnier, the farther down you get. I personally lost it when I read this bit (bolding mine) : “Some Harvard employees have said they will gladly accept a narrower network of health care providers if it lowers their costs. But Harvard’s ability to create such networks is complicated by the fact that some of Boston’s best-known, most expensive hospitals are affiliated with Harvard Medical School. To create a network of high-value providers, Harvard would probably need to exclude some of its own teaching hospitals, or discourage their use.” It’s the consternation at it all. It’s like Harvard academics thought that there was a line, and they were on the right side of that line, and it was just the people that they didn’t care for who would have to deal with any minor consequences arising from the adoption of Obamacare. Well, guess what? Turns out that we’re all just Bozos on this bus… and that includes the Bozos over at Harvard University.
And the absolute cream of this particular jest? Even the new Harvard plan is exceptionally generous (over 90% of costs covered). One imagines how all these pampered academics would feel if they were forced to use a silver (70% covered) Obamacare plan…
Moe Lane (crosspost)
Ah, the joys of people like that learning that they are “little people” as well.
This is hysterical. Hysterically funny to us peons..watching the elites get their silky drawers in a twist all because they think they are above the fray. In the immortal words of John McClane…
WELCOME TO THE PARTY, PAL!!!!
Love this “It’s like Harvard academics thought that there was a line, and they were on the right side of that line, and it was just the people that they didn’t care for who would have to deal with any minor consequences arising from the adoption of Obamacare. “.
It isn’t “like” that, it is that.
If you don’t know who the mark is….
Happy that all those smartguys at Harvard are learning what the dog food called Obamacare tastes like.
I’m not quite sure that some of these people even understand what they’re talking about:
“Mary D. Lewis, a professor who specializes in the history of modern France and has led opposition to the benefit changes, said they were tantamount to a pay cut. “Moreover,” she said, “this pay cut will be timed to come at precisely the moment when you are sick, stressed or facing the challenges of being a new parent.””
But I think my favorite bit was this: “”None of us who protested was motivated by our own bottom line so much as by the principle,” Ms. Lewis said, expressing concern about the impact of the changes on lower-paid employees.”
No, it’s not _me_, I don’t have a problem with this, but I’m concerned about the janitors.
Yep. Harvard has proven conclusively that “higher education” is rotten to the core.
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These people are simply incompetent, and it is *past* time that they learn how residents of the country they’re supposedly the cream of *really* live.
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Mew
Side note – most of the janitors and other “little people” at Harvard and other educational institutions aren’t there for the health coverage or their amusement…
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They’re there for the little detail in their employment that grants their kids the right to attend the hallowed halls at a reachable rate.
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Mew