Listen to the Regents Health Services Meeting of Aug. 14, 2018

Readers of this blog will know that we discovered retroactively that the Regents working group on compensation had a meeting August 14th at UCLA. There were complaints at the public comments period that no one had known of the meeting in advance. It turns out that there was a second meeting on the same day of the Regents health services committee. And, again, at the public comments period, there were complaints that no one knew in advance such a meeting was scheduled.

The chair of the meeting said everything is posted on the Regents' website 10 days in advance. However, when yours truly retroactively discovered the compensation meeting on the website, the health services meeting was not listed. And that was after the meeting had occurred. Moreover, the chair mentioned in passing that the next meeting of the health services committee is scheduled for October 9. But when you look today on the Regents' website for upcoming meetings - see below - there is no October 9 meeting listed.

OK. Enough said about that. As blog readers will also know, we preserve an audio recording of Regents meetings, since the Regents "archive" their recordings for only one year. You will find a link to the August 14th meeting below.

We have already noted the complaints made in the public comments period about lack of notice. There was also a brief union demonstration at that segment.

Some other highlights. It was reported that the student vaccination requirement is now being enforced. (About time!) Students without vaccinations, however, are given a one term (quarter or semester) "grace" period before they have to get a vaccination. Since it only takes a few minutes to get a vaccination, the medical rationale for such "grace" is unclear.

It was also noted that the revenues for the "health enterprise" (hospitals, docs, other providers) plus medical-related research adds up to 48% of UC revenues. I don't think that magnitude is well known to many on campus (or to the political establishment in California). It was also noted that the trend, if continued, would soon exceed 50%. Is it understood that public controversy about undergraduate "safe spaces," "trigger" warnings, and all of that is basically outside the world of half the university? It seems doubtful.

However, it was noted that there are lots of uncertainties outside the university about such things as federal health policy which could have a big impact on the 48%.

You can hear the August 14 health services meeting at the link below:



or go direct to:
https://archive.org/details/HealthServicesCommittee