As tax season approaches, there is possibility that this year could be more expensive than usual.
In October 2013, the Affordable Care Act was introduced to help provide quality health insurance at an affordable cost for individuals or families. The ACA also required employers to provide health benefits for their employees and threatened steep fines for not complying with the new law.
Oklahoma Christian University’s Chief Human Resources Officer Terry Winn regulates these requirements for all Oklahoma Christian employees. Under the ACA, the university had to redefine the lines between full and part-time employees.
“We set the limit at eight hours for our adjunct faculty because our full-time professors teach 12 credit hours, and this seems to be fair on both ends,” Winn said.
Part-time faculty and staff do not receive health insurance from the university.
When a health reform such as the ACA is released, there are certain steps to take to make certain an organization is following the mandate, according to General Counsel and Vice President Stephen Eck.
“When the ACA came out, the government did not take into full account how you would treat someone like an adjunct professor,” Eck said. “They just gave brief mention to the subject and decided to think about it for a while.”
For every hour inside the classroom, an adjunct professor is allotted 2.25 hours for their work in various capacities. This includes grading papers, gathering material for lectures, advising students, or special assignments.
“One of the first things Oklahoma Christian had to wrestle with before the health care reform came out, even before allocating hours to our adjuncts, was the Health and Services mandate, which says if the employer offers insurance that insurance must include provisions of certain board of fashions,” Eck said.
Some of these include specific benefits or medications, such as the morning after pill, that present religious issues for organizations such as Oklahoma Christian.
“The university initially participated in a lawsuit against the Secretary of Health and Human Services with other Christian universities in Oklahoma to say we are not able to provide some medications,” Eck said.
In response to these issues, the Obama administration came out with a law called a safe harbor to protect specific institutions from paying for drugs that are not in agreement with religious beliefs.
“I do believe the purpose behind the Affordable Care Act is probably a good and noble purpose, but I also think it will have negative impacts that America will not see for several years,” Eck said.
Junior Tyrell Johnson has personally seen the ups and downs of the health care reform since purchasing his own health insurance this year. Johnson was on Medicaid until he graduated high school and is now insured through the university.
“This year, the university stopped offering insurance so I went all first semester uninsured and I am just now becoming insured,” Johnson said.
The ACA has been beneficial and manageable for Johnson, who is on a fixed income, he said.
“ACA’s pros [do] outweigh its cons. I think it is definitely doing its job as far as making health care affordable for people who can’t afford it,” Johnson said.
0
0
Be First to Comment