The College Fix

Some of the nation’s liberal professors, who overwhelmingly have supported president Obama throughout his administration and have generally applauded everything he’s done, are finally getting a taste of the invasive government they’ve spent the last six years advocating. Funny thing is, they aren’t happy now that the Obamacare monster has come home to roost.

Take the example at Penn State University. The Daily Caller reports that this year the university will require all faculty to submit to invasive annual health exams. It’s all part of an incentive written into Obama’s health care law. Basically, employers who make these kinds of exams mandatory stand to benefit from increased coverage from the government.

In an article yesterday, Robby Soave of The Caller highlighted some academics’ negative reactions to the mandatory health exams:

“I resent that my employer requires that I submit to medical exams, essentially,” said Matthew Woessner, a political science professor at PSU, in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “There’s a fine line between encouraging employees to be healthy and requiring them to comply with health screenings.”

Mark Pauly, a professor of health care management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said PSU’s policy was uniquely authoritarian.

“It is a mystery to me why Penn State would start irritating their workers,” he said in a statement.

It’s amazing how often liberals who advocate big government programs, and heavy-handed government control of the economy, bristle when those policies come to affect them personally. Reminds me of how Congress voted to exempt itself from Obamacare, while forcing the rest of us to deal with its costly effects.

The “care” of the government always comes at the cost of more governmental control. Amazing to see professors complaining once the health care policies they advocated come to affect them personally. It seems to be a trend of modern liberalism–the desire to see heavy government control over the lives of the “common people,” while wanting to maintain freedom and options for oneself as a member of the progressive political/intellectual elite.

There’s a word for that sort of thing: Starts with H. Ends with Y. Rhymes with democracy.

Nathan Harden is editor of The College Fix and author of the book SEX & GOD AT YALE: Porn, Political Correctness, and a Good Education Gone Bad.

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