OUS health care coverage is inhumane
This letter speaks to the University community about the Oregon University System’s refusal to cover health care coverage for people working less than 40 hours a week. These employees care for parents, spouses and children. They work for departments without funds to hire full time or that have hours beyond normal. They are people trying to get degrees or whose work hours are limited by medical conditions. Most of all, we give our best to this University
This University seeks to make us pay for even the high deductible health insurance we now have. For a university with an excellent humanities program, this is a singularly inhumane act. One cannot speak of ethics and pathos while cruelly striking at one’s lowest-income individuals and families.
A great fear is illness without health insurance. A few days in the hospital cost more than many of us make in a year. OUS seeks to make those making the least money pay most for coverage. This University pays hundreds of thousands to put a football player’s imaßge in Times Square, yet refuses to pay a few thousand to cover insurance for employees working less than 40 hours a week.
Maybe all we are is a football college. Football teaches people to crush the weaker opponent. This seems to fit the approach our president and chancellor are taking to avoid not only part time workers, but all who labor for this University. We, the employees, may surprise them with our strength.
C.M. Berglund
University Health Center