The College Fix

I have a feeling we’re going to be seeing much more of this kind of thing in the near future.

Word is, The University of Virginia is dropping spouses from its health care insurance plan for many of its employees. It’s all in response to new regulations under the Affordable Healthcare and Patient Protection Act, a.k.a “Obamacare.”

I guess you could say that, at least for these employee spouses, Obamacare hasn’t made healthcare “affordabale” any more than it has offered them “protection.”

So much for Orwellian legislation titles.

The University of Virgina, led by the liberal Teresa Sullivan (friend and collaborator of Democratic Senator and self-styled champion of the poor Elizabeth Warren), is dropping spouses’ health insurance due to “rising health care costs” the University announced last Wednesday.

The change effects spouses who are eligible for employee health benefits elsewhere. Too bad for them if it’s more expensive to maintain two separate policies (and two premiums) for a single family.

But what’s amusing about this case, beside the fact that the overwhelmingly liberal leadership of UVA would have you believe that they’re the last ones on earth who’d deprive workers of their benefits, is this: UVA publicly supported Obamacare when it was being debated in Congress.

Yes, UVA administrators were vocal supporters of the bill they now say is forcing them to strip health benefits away from workers.

As the Virginia politics blog BearingDrift reports:

On March 19, 2010, Sally N. Barber, Special Advisor to the Medical Center CEO released publicly a letter to then Congressman, Tom Perriello, endorsing the Democrats’ health care proposal:

“I am writing on behalf of the University of Virginia Medical Center to indicate our support of the health reform package pending before the House because we believe providing affordable health coverage for more citizens of the Commonwealth is critical.” [emphasis added]

Sally Barber and The University of Virginia could not have been more wrong—or more shortsighted…

This is the hypocrisy of tax-and-spend liberalism. They want all kinds of benefits from the government, but they want no part in having to pay for those benefits themselves.

Even a wealthy university like UVA, with an endowment worth more than $5 billion, is telling employees that the level of health benefits they used to provide is just too costly.

UVA leaders should be ashamed to blame legislation they supported for the cancellation of workers’ benefits.

Maybe if they weren’t such reflexive supporters of president Obama and anything and everything he does, they would have had a chance to think more objectively about the consequences of the law they supported.

As it stands now, they’d like you to believe that the move to cancel benefits was entirely forced upon them.

Here’s my suggestion: If money’s so tight at UVA, maybe all the high-paid senior administrators who supported Obama and his health care takeover should start by cancelling their own health plans before taking benefits from the low-paid workers under their leadership.

But don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

Nathan Harden is editor of The College Fix and author of the book SEX & GOD AT YALE: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad.

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