Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Health Fee
It's voting season for the "Throw money away for your conscience" fee. Once the Daily Cal's web folks gets their crap together, I'll point out some of the stupidity in today's opinion section. But I checked out the ballot and found something disturbing:
Underneath the referendum, on the ballot, the pro-fee propoganda is printed. Right from their site. With no information that it is the pro-fee propoganda. So if you just wander along and stop by, you might think that's the neutral information. One more reason for us to be sore losers afterwards, I guess. Still, because of that, it makes my whole "Go read the ballot" spiel a little less effective.
The general opponent position, according to The Patriot and the others I've talked to is to not vote and hope it gets apathied to death (i.e. turnout is less than 20%). I'm not sure this is the best tactic, as when it passes, they're bound to point and say "OMG, it passed 22%-3%, that's a huge margin, we have a blank check to increase the fee as much as we want!" but whatever, if that's the strategy, I guess I'm down with it. In the long-run, we may want to try to get the referendum process changed.
Today's newslet shows campaigning by alumna Jasmin Reyes. Yes, you heard right, an alumna. Someone who won't have to pay the fee. Telling all of us to pay the fee. She had a hospital outfit with fake blood on it. Just a reminder, if you're injured badly enough that you're covered in blood, you'll probably have to go to a hospital anyway, Tang isn't going to do much for you.
Anyway, here's the editorial. It begins with some stuff about how the Tang center sucks because it doesn't have enough money. I didn't know that the Tang Center's sucking is something new that wasn't there before the huge budget cuts, but whatever.
Arguing that this bill won’t affect those who don’t use the Tang Center is a study in shortsightedness. As anyone still recovering from flu season will agree, if a student is sick then the five closest people around that student soon will be. Students cannot predict the future; it’s likely most will visit Tang sooner rather than later.
If I did get the flu, I'd much rather have that $43 to "drink lots of fluids," "get plenty of rest," and do all that other stuff my mother told me to do if I have the flu. The flu may be life-threatening for some people, but we're college students.
The argument then goes the following way: Improving health services would be good. But the referendum is inflexible, and there isn't much guarantee that it will work, and it won't solve the problems, but still, vote for it anyway!
Now, The ASUCers have the usual thought-free "Health sounds good!" approach. Misha is an engineer, but still supports this. What a disgrace. Ironically, the second sentence reads:
This referendum gives us a choice in how to pay for our health care next year.
In fact, the opposite is true. If this referendum fails, we'll have the choice of how we want to pay for our health care. If it passes, our health care payment plan and method is set in stone.
A “Yes” vote establishes a new fee to improve staffing and services at the Tang Center. It ensures students have prompt, affordable, convenient health care so we can focus on our studies.
I'm getting tired of pointing this out, but no, it doesn't. The only thing it "ensures" is that students will have a $43-sized hole in their wallets every semester.
It ensures access to care for those on financial aid: a third of the fees will offset costs for the neediest students.
In particular, it offsets the costs that the health fee adds. Which really isn't all that impressive.
We choose to empower the student body, creating revenue for health care protected from budget cuts and overseen by a student advisory committee.
Oh, fascinating. Of course, it's not protected from budget cuts in any meaningful way. And even though it's a "student advisory committee," most students are just as powerless as they were before.
UC policy requires an independent student advisory committee be convened to advise campus health officials on the use of fee money. The by-laws governing this advisory committee are determined after the vote, but representatives will be drawn from a diverse cross-section of student constituencies.
Wow. I hope you're reading carefully. "Yeah, we'll decide who's on it and how to make it later, but it'll totally be diverse. Seriously. Just hand over that blank check..."
Finally, and I never thought I'd say this, today's Jessica Rifkind cartoon is actually illuminating of how stupid people who vote for this fee are. It would be nice, though, if the computer monitor was facing the dude using it. And if the keyboard had... you know... keys.
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