"Professors file health care lawsuit; Adjunct instructors challenge denial of insurance coverage" by Tracy Jan, Globe Staff | November 24, 2009
A group of part-time community college instructors filed a lawsuit yesterday against the state, saying that hundreds of adjunct faculty in Massachusetts’ public higher education system are unfairly denied health care coverage.
To be your national model, remember that.
The lawsuit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court on behalf of five instructors, follows nearly a decade of unsuccessful wrangling with state legislators to get an adjunct health insurance bill enacted into law. It also comes as schools, particularly community colleges, are increasingly turning to adjuncts amid burgeoning enrollment.
“We’ve been trying on the Hill to persuade the state to do the right thing, and, to be frank, I just ran out of patience,’’ said Joseph T. LeBlanc, president of the Massachusetts Community College Council, which is a plaintiff in the suit, along with the Massachusetts Teachers Association. “It’s a case of justice. The state ought to be providing a large chunk of these people with a health insurance plan.’’
So much for our great, near-universal experiment!!!
The situation is particularly startling, the plaintiffs say, given the 2006 state law mandating health insurance coverage for all residents. The Teachers Association estimates that about 500 adjunct faculty members meet the state’s longtime definition of part-time employees - those who working at least 18.75 hours a week - and should be eligible for state health insurance....
If successful, the lawsuit would set a legal precedent that would extend to adjunct faculty at all the state colleges and universities, said Matthew Jones, attorney for the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Extending coverage to adjunct faculty at community colleges alone could cost upwards of $2 million a year as the state is struggling to make ends meet....
Well, I KNOW where you could EASILY GET $2 million dollars -- but no one wants to hear it.
As colleges scramble to meet rising enrollment by hiring cheaper, part-time faculty, the adjunct ranks have expanded to about 4,300 instructors in the state’s 15 community college campuses, a 13 percent increase from six years ago.
Some of the best instructors -- and those with the fondest memories -- were adjuncts.
More than half of undergraduate courses at community colleges across the state are taught by part-time instructors, who make up two-thirds of community college faculty, according to the Massachusetts Community College Council....
Patrick Lochelt, a plaintiff and an English instructor who teaches eight classes a semester at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill, Middlesex Community College in Lowell, and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. “In some ways, it really is exploitation.’’
Lochelt’s class load, with nearly 200 students per semester, is nearly twice as much as a full-time instructor, but he is paid far less, about $2,700 per course. He said he spends 23 hours a week in class and an additional 15 hours a week grading papers. He also serves as the faculty adviser for the award-winning student literary magazine at Northern Essex, an unpaid position.
Many adjunct professors, like Lochelt, patch together a full-time living teaching multiple courses at several colleges and shell out hundreds of dollars each month for private health insurance.
“Luckily, I’m only 30 and don’t have any health issues, but if I did, I’d be in big trouble,’’ Lochelt said. But as insurance rates skyrocket, some instructors say, they can no longer afford the premiums.
Cynthia Duda, another plaintiff and an English instructor who teaches six classes at North Shore Community College and Bunker Hill Community College, said she recently switched from a $910 a month health plan to a bare-bones $638 a month plan that does not cover urgent care.
$160/a WEEK premium? I CAN'T AFFORD THAT, can you?
“At my age, I need all the insurance I can get,’’ said Duda, 61. “I am killing myself teaching all these courses trying to scrape up this health insurance money, trying to make it to Medicare. This is not right.’’
When Duda fell ill on a recent weekend and lost her voice, she said, she avoided going to the doctor because she could not afford to do so....
That is the answer in Massachusetts.
In comparison, full-time community college instructors who are covered by the state’s plans for individuals pay between $80 and $220 a month for health insurance, or about 20 percent to 25 percent of the cost.
WTF?!!!
Duda estimates that even as a part-time instructor, she works about 40 hours a week in and out of the classroom. She said that since 1990, she has taught a full schedule, including summers, nights, and weekends, though she is still considered a temporary contract worker.
“I’m working full time for the state of Massachusetts, the only state with so-called universal health care,’’ Duda said. “Great, where’s mine? In the end, it takes a toll on you inside. That’s when I think, why don’t I matter?’’
Because OUR LYING LOOTERS are TOO BUSY TOSSING TAX LOOT at FAVORED INTERESTS and into their own pockets!
Amy Whitcomb Slemmer - executive director of Health Care For All, a consumer advocate group - said health care is “a basic human right.’’ “To deny it to educators, whom we entrust to cultivate and enrich the state’s young minds, seems unkind and unfair,’’ said Slemmer.
Well, it really is NOT a RIGHT under the Constitution; however, I' m with you if it is is SINGLE PAYER!!
Pick a country, pick a plan, America!!!!
Whatever you do, DON'T MODEL yourself AFTER Massachusetts!!!!
"Health pushes firms’ tax up; State to double levy to keep fund solvent in 2010" by Kay Lazar, Globe Staff | November 26, 2009
The Patrick administration intends to double a key tax on employers in an effort to save health insurance for thousands of laid-off Massachusetts workers, after a fund to help them has been virtually drained by the highest unemployment rates in three decades.
Yup, EVERY TIME YOU TURN AROUND in Massachusetts they RAISE A TAX!!!
And state senator Rosenberg said on the radio they are going to RAISE THE INCOME TAX when they get back!!!!
When will you EVER LEARN, Bay-Staters!?
The administration’s plan would also require the unemployed to shoulder more costs for certain doctors’ visits.
Meanwhile, they are GIVING HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of TAX DOLLARS to PROFITABLE HOLLYWOOD!!!
Heck, here is $5 million to start!!!
The emergency measures would keep the Medical Security Trust Fund solvent through the end of 2010 and preserve roughly $300 million in federal Medicaid reimbursements that Massachusetts would lose if the program failed, Labor and Workforce Development Secretary Suzanne Bump said in a telephone interview yesterday.
It is ALWAYS STATE EXTORTION at SOME LEVEL, isn't it?
“There are hundreds of millions of dollars of federal reimbursement that hang in the balance,’’ Bump said. Without changes, the trust fund, which is the pool of money that pays for health insurance for the unemployed, would finish next year more than $80 million in deficit.
Well, YOU KNOW WHERE the $$$ is going, dear readers!
The health insurance program, which is funded solely by a tax on employers, helps lower- and middle-income people who fail to qualify for other state-subsidized health care programs designed for the poor. The program covers roughly 34,000 unemployed residents. Businesses pay $16.80 per employee, per year into the trust fund, a tax that will double to $33.60 under the administration’s plan. To cushion that impact, the administration also intends to ask the Legislature to lessen the planned increase in another tax businesses are required to contribute for unemployment benefits.
Yeah, it's called a "sweetner." A sugary-sweet coating on a pile of ****.
Businesses were facing an automatic 40 percent increase in that second tax, triggered by an increase in unemployment benefit payouts. Instead of hiking the tax as much, the Patrick administration will propose borrowing the difference from the federal government.
Sigh!!!
Oh, MORE BORROWING so we PAY INTEREST, 'eh?
Talk about MISMANAGING and LOOTING a PEOPLE!!!!
You are NUMBER ONE, Massachusetts, as they do number two on you!
“We are aware that the ability of the business community to shoulder these burdens is finite,’’ Bump said....
But WE DON'T CARE!
The proposal to lessen the planned increase in unemployment taxes, from 40 percent to roughly 30 percent, would need legislative approval. Even if passed, employers would still end up with a net increase in what they now pay. A three-member board - Patrick’s commissioners of insurance, Medicaid, and unemployment assistance - are scheduled Monday to approve the plan to double the business tax to keep the health insurance program afloat. That increase would take effect in January. Yesterday, business leaders seemed resigned to the hikes.....
Yeah, I think we ALL ARE!
This CRAPPER STATE does NOT LISTEN to us, and the only way to deal with it TOSS OUT ALL the INCUMBENTS!!!
All of 'em, right down the most minuscule town office.
The administration’s plan would also require the unemployed to pay more for doctors’ visits, if they choose providers deemed by the state to be a higher cost, lower-quality caregiver.
WTF is wrong with them out there?!
However, patient copayments would remain level if they remain with preapproved providers.
Translation: YOU WILL HAVE NO CHOICE of DOCTOR under the DemocraPs national plan, 'murka!!!
The state’s largest health consumer group, Health Care for All, expressed mixed emotions over this cost-saving approach.... A report last week by the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, an independent think tank, found that the Medical Security Trust Fund would not be going broke if taxes on employers had kept pace with inflation, as required by the 1988 law that created the program, the report stated.
Is there NOTHING this state can't f*** up? THIS is their SIGNATURE ACHIEVEMENT and EXAMPLE for the NATION?
For SMALL BUSINESS to be TAXED OUT of EXISTENCE?!
But Bump disputed that reading of the law. She said the fees the state charged businesses would have been sufficient if the recession had not dragged on for so long and if Congress had not repeatedly extended unemployment benefits.
Oh, thanks for "helping" out, Congress! WTF?!!!
Those extensions have drained about $60 million from the fund since July 2008, according to the state.
--more--"
- The Massachusetts Model: Working Or Not?
- The Massachusetts Model: Going Out of Business
- The Massachusetts Model: Crazy Coverage
- The Massachusetts Model: Immigrant Insult
- The Massachusetts Model: Profit and the Paycheck
- The Massachusetts Model: Doctors' Diet
- The Massachusetts Model: By the Numbers
- The Massachusetts Model: Treasurer's Assessment
- The Massachusetts Model: Care-Keeping Costs
- The Massachusetts Model: Mass. Hospitality
- The Massachusetts Model: Lessons Learned
- The Massachusetts Model: Non-Compliant Complacency
- The Massachusetts Model: Office Visit
- The Massachusetts Model: Student Shakedown
- The Massachusetts Model: Medicaid Mess
- The Massachusetts Model: Destroying Small Business
