Harvard Faculty ObamaCare Lampoon

A sharp, often virulent satire directed at an individual or social institution, ridiculing its characteristics or behavior.

Lampoon


I’d rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston phone directory than to the Harvard faculty.

William F. Buckley. Jr, (1925-2008), American conservative, commentator, author, and Yale graduate.


Among the cognoscenti, Harvard University is known for many things - the world’s leading and America’s oldest university at 378 years, the most highly endowed institution of learning at $38 billion, the most highly compensated university faculty, the most frequent source of Nobel Prize winners, the universal backer of ObamaCare, its lavish health care insurance benefit plans for Harvard faculty, its reputation as a liberal institution and as the alma mater of President Obama, Jonathon Gruber, and other ACA supporters and architects, and last, and not least, as the home of the satirical Harvard Lampoon, a Harvard humor magazine established by 7 undergraduates in 1876.

Harvard has a rich tradition of lampooning others.

But now the Harvard faculty, not Harvard students, are being lampooned. Harpooned may be a better word. The faculty is being ridiculed for objecting en masse to increased deductibles, co-pays, and premiums in its health plans. Harvard critics , unconnected to the revered institution, are chiding the Harvard faculty for what critics see as the monumental hypocrisy towards ObamaCare. For good reason. The public at large has been enduring cost burdens and losses of doctors and hospitals for some time now. But not the Harvard faculty, not until now.

Now the faculty is crimson (pun intended) over hikes in health care rates and inconveniences. Until now, the famed faculty seemed unaware these high rates and inconveniences had been hoisted and imposed upon the rest of us .

This unawareness brings to mind two quotes.

One, from Walt Kelly (1913-1973), creator of Pogo, “ We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

Two, from Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), of Alice in Wonderland fame, "The Queen turned crimson with fury, and after glaring at her for a moment with fury like a wild beast began screaming, ‘Off with her head? Off with __.’”

Surely not off with the head of President Obama and not off with his health plan, but off with Harvard's pique about being grouped with the rest of the populace.

Which brings me to one of the 20 editorials or Op-Eds now running lampooning the Harvard faculty’s reaction to ObamaCare's soaring costs, which the faculty interprets as the unkindest cuts ever inflicted upon their erstwhile hero and their cherished ideology.

This is from the editorial staff of the Chicago Tribune )(”Harvard’s ObamaCare Revolt", January 8. 2014). it is an harpoon plunged into the thin skin of Harvard faculty members.

“Harvard professors are learning, extremely belatedly, what smart people knew from Day One. ObamaCare is disruptive and expensive. All that free care is not free. Somebody has to pay. Make that: Everybody has to pay. No exception for Harvard professors. You don’t need a Harvard Ph.D. to understand that.