Topic: Healthcare Reform

Article

A stroke of luck shines light on the struggle for part-time healthcare
When the President of AFT Local 4952 contracted West Nile virus, the hospitals charity fund stepped in to cover the bill.

Trevor Krapf, President of the Yuba College Federation of Teachers, AFT Local 4952, representing part-time faculty, teaches 5 to 9 classes of political science a semester at various community colleges. This is more than a full-time load but hasn’t been enough for him to be eligible for health benefits at any one district. 

Krapf opted to pay out of pocket for his insurance through Covered California. Then his credit card expired.

Geoff Johnson, AFT Guild San DiegoLacy Barnes, CFT Senior Vice PresidentCFT President Jeff Freitas

AFT resolution asks U.S. Department of Education to conduct higher ed study
Calls for national data about adjunct/contingent pay and benefit inequities

CFT once again demonstrated its commitment to adjunct/contingent faculty by submitting and winning unanimous passage of its resolution “Calling for Department of Education Study of Pay and Benefit Inequity” at the AFT Convention July 15 in Boston.

Article PT campaign part-time faculty
FAQ

FAQ: Part-time faculty healthcare, collective bargaining & state budget
Answers to common questions

Updated September 27, 2022

This year we won a historic expansion of state funding for part-time community college faculty healthcare, increasing state support from $490,000 to $200 million in ongoing funding.

The funding will enable local community colleges to provide quality, affordable, and accessible healthcare to substantially more part-time faculty. Local unions should now prepare to go to the bargaining table to negotiate the healthcare implementation.

Article PT campaign part-time faculty
FAQ- Part-Time Faculty Healthcare

FAQ: Part-time faculty healthcare, the state budget, and collective bargaining
Quick answers to common questions

Updated July 1, 2022

About half of the California community college districts offer healthcare benefits for part-time faculty; the quality of the benefits is wide ranging with some offering the same benefits package to full- and part-time faculty and some offering very modest stipends to help cover the cost of insurance.

Article PT campaign part-time faculty coronavirus
Samira RostamiTehmina KhanBernadette MoordigianSamira Rostami in classroom

What does losing healthcare look like for part-time faculty in our community colleges? Part 2
Pandemic, declining enrollment has led to loss of health benefits

Samira Rostami has taught Communication Studies at Grossmont College since 2014, as well as at four other San Diego area higher ed institutions including the University of San Diego. Her health took a dramatic turn for the worse shortly after area campuses closed in late March 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. 

Honour Harry with a folder of paintings done by seniorsMike BradburyHonour Harry walking to workHistory teacher Juli Jones

What does losing healthcare look like for part-time faculty in our community colleges? Part 1
Pandemic, declining enrollment has led to loss of health benefits

Honour Harry works two jobs — as a freelance illustrator and doing children’s education at a local church — in addition to her job teaching art for the North Orange Community College District. Harry doesn’t teach on campus. Instead, she goes into nursing homes, often working with people who are in memory care and who are immunocompromised.

Article part-time faculty PT campaign
members on zoom

Part-time faculty step up to win the healthcare they deserve
Dozens of faculty testify before state legislative committees

Dozens of CFT members testified this week in front of two different budget subcommittees of the California Legislature to urge our elected leaders in Sacramento to support Governor Newsom’s $200 million proposal in the state budget to fund healthcare for part-time faculty in California’s community colleges.

Following the launch of CFT’s campaign for part-time faculty healthcare last fall and a successful letter campaign, the governor included the $200 million in his January budget proposal.

Article PT campaign state budget part-time faculty

Member action leads governor to pledge $200 million toward part-time faculty healthcare
CFT campaign brings early success in state budget

The CFT campaign to secure healthcare for part-time faculty in the community colleges is up and running, and it’s clear that member action has already led to early success in Sacramento.

During the holiday break, 1,400 people sent letters to Governor Newsom and key legislators demanding funding for part-time faculty healthcare. As a result of these efforts, the governor allocated $200 million in his January 10 state budget proposal to fund healthcare for part-time faculty on an ongoing basis. This increase represents more than 400 times the level of funding in the existing state program.

Article PT campaign part-time faculty
graphical presentation of inequality in healthcare

CFT launches campaign to secure healthcare for part-time faculty
“Adjuncts deserve, at the very least, the basic right of healthcare”

The pandemic has pushed many harsh realities in higher education to the forefront, none more so than the inadequacy of healthcare for part-time faculty. With the cost of an average COVID hospitalization, according to a number of sources, running in excess of $20,000, the financial effects alone on an uninsured part-timer contracting COVID can be devastating. Add a possible uninsured family member or members to the mix, and the reality becomes even more frightening.

Article CFT Convention part-time faculty

Healthcare, transferable training top adjunct priorities at CFT Convention
Delegates resolve to address timely adjunct issues

At this year’s virtual CFT Convention held March 26-27, the Part-Time Faculty Committee sponsored two resolutions reflective of both the longstanding and new problems beginning to emerge in the wake of the pandemic which has impacted adjunct health and training.

Article part-time faculty

Part-timer health benefits: The successes and challenges ahead

Among the many challenges that part-time, or contingent faculty face, health care benefits, or rather, the lack thereof, has been one of the most significant.

According to Bloomberg, healthcare is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the United States, and in spite of the passage of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, in March 2010, the number of bankruptcies attributed to healthcare costs tripled in 2017, while the general rate of bankruptcies fell overall.

California Teacher Medicare

Medicare-for-All could free billions for our classrooms

Most American schools and colleges pay for employee healthcare out of their budgets. Education activists are enthusiastic that a Medicare-for-All approach for faculty and staff would free up billions of dollars for classrooms.

Los Angeles schools, for example, could cut their current $1 billion healthcare bill in half, according to John Perez, a retired president of United Teachers Los Angeles.

California Teacher Affordable Care Act

Affordable Care Act: Providing options to part-time workers
Three part-time educators do the math, find different ways to meet their 
healthcare needs

Lisa Agcaoili nervously waited to speak with a Covered California counselor in a West Los Angeles College cafeteria, where thousands of people had come to a Health and Enrollment Fair for solid information about their options under the Affordable Care Act.

Article Affordable Care Act part-time employment

Affordable Care Act helps uninsured part-time workers

Lisa Agcaoili paces nervously as she waits to speak with a Covered California counselor in a West Los Angeles College cafeteria. Thousands of people have come to a Health and Enrollment Fair for solid information about their options under the Affordable Care Act.

Agcaoili hasn’t had insurance in the more than 20 years she has worked for the Lawndale Elementary School District. The part-time instructional assistant works fewer than 30 hours a week and isn’t eligible for district health plans. She is over 50 and suffers migraines daily.

Article single payer
Fixing the healthcare crisis

Fixing the healthcare crisis
Single payer system is the solution

Hundreds of union members, seniors, and healthcare activists attended a rally in downtown San Francisco for single payer healthcare, held outside a health insurers’ convention on June 19, 2008. Speakers like Hene Kelly of United Educators of San Francisco (listen to her four-minute speech below) urged support for single payer healthcare. Embodied in SB 810 in California, it would eliminate the insurance corporation middleman, which wastes an average of more than one quarter of every healthcare dollar for administrative costs and profits.

Article

The Education Coalition for Health Care Reform
CFT participates in labor-management watchdog group

By Marty Hittelman, CFT Senior Vice President

The CFT and other education labor groups have joined with administrative and school board organizations in the Education Coalition for Health Care Reform to find a way to stabilize costs while increasing quality. The group is determined to address the systemic reasons for high cost and low-quality health care.

We are committed to shifting from just paying higher prices to joint action against industry price gouging and poor-quality health care. CFT Field Representative Greg Eddy and I have been representing the CFT at these joint labor-management meetings.