Well lookee here. It would seem that no one is immune to the consequences of Obamacare which has now begun to have an impact even on some of our so-called institutions of higher learning. The first casualty, and presumably one that may not be the last, is Pennsylvania's Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC) which has announced that it is slashing the hours of 400 adjunct instructors, support staff, and part-time instructors to dodge paying for Obamacare. "It's kind of a double whammy for us because we are facing a legal requirement [under the new law] to get health care and if the college is reducing our hours, we don't have the money to pay for it," said adjunct biology professor Adam Davis.
On this past Tuesday, CCAC employees were notified that due to the fact that Obamacare defines full-time employees as those working 30 hours or more per week, that as of 31 December temporary part-time employees will be cut back to 25 hours. It is said that the move will save at least an estimated $6 million. "While it is of course the college’s preference to provide coverage to these positions, there simply are not funds available to do so," said CCAC spokesperson David Hoovler. "Several years of cuts or largely flat funding from our government supporters have led to significant cost reductions by CCAC, leaving little room to trim the college’s budget further." And I’m pretty sure that most of those effected all thought it would be great to vote for Barry.
The solution, says United Steelworkers representative Jeff Cech, is that adjunct professors should unionize in an attempt to thwart schools seeking similar cost-savings efforts from avoiding Obamacare. "They may be complying with the letter of the law, but the letter of law and the spirit of the law are two different things," said our union hack, Mr. Cech. "If they are doing it at CCAC, it can't be long before they do it other places." Right, that’s the answer. Anyway, under the new CCAC policy, adjunct professors will only be allowed to teach 10 credit hours a semester. Adjuncts are paid $730 per credit hour. "We all know we are expendable," said Mr. Davis, "and there are plenty of people out there in this economy who would be willing to have our jobs."
So what we really have here is simply another case of, ‘what goes around, comes around.’ The only satisfaction I can garner for myself after watching Barry get re-elected is from watching those who voted for him suffer at least a little bit from they’re having done so. I’m sure many of these folks cheerfully marched off to the polls that day, confident in themselves that they were doing the right thing for both themselves and the country. And I’m just as sure that the thought that they might somehow be made to face some sort of consequences stemming from their action, never even entered into their little pea-brain. Imagine their surprise when word came that they would. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall.
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