ObamaCare Giving it to Adjunct University Professors, Good and Hard

Ha. Ha haha haha. Haha.

In Ohio, instructor Robert Balla faces a new cap on the number of hours he can teach at Stark State College. In a Dec. 6 letter, the North Canton school told him that “in order to avoid penalties under the Affordable Care Act… employees with part-time or adjunct status will not be assigned more than an average of 29 hours per week.”

Mr. Balla, a 41-year-old father of two, had taught seven English composition classes last semester, split between Stark State and two other area schools. This semester, his course load at Stark State is down to one instead of two as a result of the school’s new limit on hours, cutting his salary by about a total of $2,000.

Stark State’s move came as a blow to Mr. Balla, who said he earns about $40,000 a year and cannot afford health insurance.

“I think it goes against the spirit of the [health-care] law,” Mr. Balla said. “In education, we’re working for the public good, we are public employees at a public institution; we should be the first ones to uphold the law, to set the example.”

His mistake is in believing the public story that Democrats told was the “spirit” of ObamaCare. That spirit was not about reducing costs or even expanding access. It was about federal control along with shifting our entire political dialogue far to the left of where it was. It was about settling questions firmly in favor of statism over individual liberty.

The above is an excerpt of a WSJ article, posted by Walter Russell Mead.  He adds:

Universities are citadels of blue model thinking and most faculty members are relentlessly liberal in their politics. But the reality is that these same universities are some of the nastiest and most exploitative employers in America. The exploitation of adjuncts is an ugly feature of contemporary American academic life, and the smug complacency about it among many beneficiaries of the two tier system should remind us all that moral hypocrisy can co-exist with impressive degrees.

Indeed. Universities exploit their adjuncts at one end and exploit parents and students at the other. Look at it this way: Now that the universities will save money on pay and on their healthcare costs, will they pass those savings on in the form of reduced fees?

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.