HOW'S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKING? Tenured Radical follows up on last week's cost-cutting roundup with the latest economy measure at her employer.

Many of us at Zenith were stunned when our administrative staff received an e-mail from Human Resources telling them that the cost of their health insurance is going up dramatically: our Admin expects to pay twice what she paid last fiscal year. As their Union Steward wrote, less than a week before the election, "I was informed today by (Big HR Dude) about the Health Insurance Premiums for 2011. As you know, in our contract, our insurance is scheduled to go up 18.5% to be at a level playing field with Administration which pays 33% of the premium. BHRD informed me that the increase for the Health Insurance Premium (that goes up every year around 3-5%) will be going up 14% mostly due to the Obama Health Care Reform Act. Therefore, we will not just have an increase of 18.5% but an additional 14% increase which will be rounded off to a total of 33% increase starting January 1, 2011."

That announcement proves to be inaccurate.

As we know, the actual name of the bill is the Affordable Care Act, and the "Obama Health Care Reform Act" is a phrase disseminated by right-wingers who spread untruths about the bill to try to make vulnerable people afraid of liberal reform agendas. Having been called on this by a storm of angry emails by staff and faculty, a message arrived today saying that this was a mistake made by the Union Steward (who, as of this morning, was not responding to emails.) Big HR Dude is shocked, shocked! by this misunderstanding, and writes, "The Healthcare Reform Act" (still not the right name!) "is a factor in the cost, but a very small one.

When university professors stop drinking the Democratic Kool-Aid, we might begin to see quips such as "it is neither affordable, nor care, nor an Act," and we might see Atlas Shrugged beginning to accompany The Invisible Man or The Color Purple on the reading lists.