"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," the New York Times reported.
The media outlet notes that in November 2014, the overwhelming majority of members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted against implementation of Obamacare's provisions, which would require Harvard employees to pay more for medical care. Ironically, the cost increases have become a logical result of the Affordable Care Act, which the Harvard professors had almost unanimously supported and fought for over the past five-plus years.
However, Meredith B. Rosenthal, a professor of health economics and policy at the Harvard School of Public Health, said she was confused by the outrage expressed by her colleagues. "The changes in Harvard faculty benefits are parallel to changes that all Americans are seeing. Indeed, they have come to our front door much later than to others," she said, as cited by the New York Times. Still the professor admitted that the cost-sharing plan would inevitably lead to high "out-of-pocket costs," placing consumers in a disadvantageous position.
In his turn, Richard F. Thomas, a Harvard professor of Greek and Latin, denounced the changes as "deplorable, deeply regressive, a sign of the corporatization of the university," as quoted by the media outlet.
Mary D. Lewis, a professor of history specializing in modern France emphasized that health care cost increases would actually mean a pay cut. "Moreover, 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," she told the New York Times.
"William Buckley [a prominent American conservative journalist] remarked more than once that he would rather trust the governance of the country to the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than to the 2,000 people on the faculty of Harvard," writes the Week, adding that "When it comes to formulating public policy, the nation's most prestigious university has made it clear that it would much rather impose it on others than live with its consequences."
