and readily observable.”

As such, Teodoro argued if 
a water system is run by the 
local government, then it will 
naturally focus on reducing 
the price of water to appease 
residents — a stance that will 
also inadvertently lead to lower 
water quality.
“The goal of every politician 
who wants to get re-elected 
wants to minimize price and 
maximize quality,” Teodoro 
said. “However, because of 
how much more visible prices 
are than quality for water, the 
long-run outcome is low prices 
and low quality.”

Alternatively, 
in 
private-
run water systems, the price 
companies 
are 
allowed 
to 
charge for water is limited by 
how much they invest in their 
water infrastructure, which is 
a limit enforced by the public 
utilities commission. Because 
of this, they are incentivized 
to over-invest in their water 
infrastructure, which will lead 
to high quality water but also 
high prices.
“The goal of every company 
is to make profit,” Teodoro said. 
“As such, they are incentivized 
to maximize investment so that 
the public utilities commission 
will allow them to raise prices 
in 
conjunction 
with 
their 
higher investments. As such, 
private water tends to be high 
price and high quality.”

However, 
Teodoro 
also 
argued 
public-private 
partnerships 
are 
not 
the 
solution to this dilemma.
“In 
public-private 
partnerships, 
the 
local 
government 
sets 
the 
price 
for the water and the private 
company has to figure out 
how to maximize its profits 
within that,” Teodoro said. “As 
such, the incentive for these 
private companies is to reduce 
operating costs. This results in 
low-priced water but also low-
quality water.”
Furthermore, 
Teodoro 
disputed the perception that 
public-private 
partnerships 
are a solution for financially 
constrained 
water 
markets, 
emphasizing 
how 
they 
are 
a 
mechanism, 
not 
a 
self-

sufficient source of revenue.
“Privatization 
of 
public 
partnerships are not sources 
of capital. In the end, the 
money’s 
coming 
from 
the 
same people,” Teodoro said. 
“The rate increases are still 
going to be needed to upgrade 
infrastructure, or else they will 
continue to fail.”
After the talk, Sheny Puspita, 
a 
Public 
Policy 
graduate 
student, reflected on her views 
of the water systems and her 
main takeaways from the talk.
She discussed how more 
successful systems tend to be 
small, privately-owned water 
plants, but improvements are 
needed in larger, public water 
systems.
“The private-owned model 
only works with small-scale 

water plants, but we need to 
improve number of larger-scale 
water plants,” Puspita said.
Puspita also acknowledged 
private water plants do tend to 
produce higher quality water 
and operate more efficiently.
“I believe that private water 
plants will enhance the quality 
of water and efficiency of water 
plants,” she said.
Puspita spoke of her concern 
of how politicians would use 
public-private partnerships to 
shield themselves away from 
their responsibility for their 
constituencies’ water systems.
Marc Jaruzel, a Public Policy 
graduate 
student, 
 
echoed 
some of the skepticism for 
public-private 
water 
system 
partnerships.
“Public-private partnerships 

aren’t 
necessarily 
the 
fix-
all,” Jaruzel said. “There is 
some evidence that it may be 
beneficial, but we just can’t say 
definitively whether P3s will 
be beneficial or not.”
Jaruzel commented on how 
having competing public water 
systems would not be a feasible 
solution either.
“I think public competition 
would be really challenging 
because you would have to 
have different pipes laying 
in the ground from different 
companies,” Jaruzel said. “I 
think it would take a really 
creative solution to get utilities 
to compete in a similar way as 
other businesses.”

And think of the students 
with disabilities or injuries that 
are going to have a hard time 
getting to and from classes this 
week.”
In an interview with The 
Daily, 
McAllister 
said 
she 
understands 
the 
difficult 
logistics 
behind 
canceling 
classes, 
but 
the 
University 
should 
take 
the 
safety 
of 
students and staff into account.
“I think there’s a biased 
assumption that all students live 
very centrally … close to the Diag 
and so it’s not that big of a deal if 
there are bad conditions because 
it’s not that far to go, but that’s 
not the case,” McAllister said. 
“I think that in the mix of it, we 
forget about students who live 
off campus or far from campus 
and have to commute; their 
lives are put in danger by having 
to drive in these conditions. 
Students who are disabled have 

to find a way to get to campus 
through all of the mess as well.”
LSA junior Iman Elkahlah 
lives about 15 minutes away 
and commutes to campus. She 
said the University should value 
safety over classes as the roads 
she takes to get to school are not 
fully cleared of snow.
“I’m debating whether I’ll be 
able to go to class or not because 
my safety is my number one 
priority,” Elkahlah said. “The 
campus roads are clean, but the 
roads in downtown Ann Arbor 
are harsh. They are not taking 
into consideration the roads to 
come here.”
When asked about taking 
disabled and commuter students 
into consideration, the Office 
of Public Affairs declined to 
comment.
Blue busses face difficulties
The University of Michigan 
Campus Bus System Facebook 
page posted Saturday about the 
predicted hazardous weather 
conditions in the coming week. 
The post advised students of 

possible bus delays and warned 
of the chance of frostbite after 10 
minutes of exposed skin under 
the current weather conditions.
On Monday afternoon, a Blue 
Bus slid off the road and hit a 
nearby tree.
Stephen 
Dolen, 
executive 
director 
of 
logistics, 
transportation 
and 
parking 
at the University, said the 
department is working to ensure 
buses run on schedule in this 
week’s snowy weather. He said 
there is an additional challenge 
making sure enough staff is 
able to safely get to work, and 
the department is trying their 
best to get as many overtime 
volunteers as possible.
“Any weather event has a 
huge impact on transit,” Dolen 
said. “Things are going slower, 
and our drivers are directed to 
not take any additional chances 
because they are trying to stay 
on time. When it comes to days 
like this, you have to be safe and 
do the best you can to stay as 
on time as possible. We’re very 

considerate of what’s going on 
with the cold.”
Other 
schools, 
businesses 
close for inclimate weather
Multiple services and events 
on campus were closed or 
rescheduled Monday. The LSA 
Social Impact Fair, originally 
scheduled for Monday evening, 
was rescheduled for March 
11. 
Center 
for 
Global 
and 
Intercultural Study closed at 
3 p.m. and moved a First Step 
session to Tuesday afternoon. 
The 
Fishbowl 
closed 
early 
Monday 
afternoon 
due 
to 
weather-based student safety 
concerns, and Espresso Royale 
on South University Avenue 
closed early at 8 p.m. 
U-M Dearborn and U-M Flint 
both closed on Jan. 28. Eastern 
Michigan University canceled 
classes Jan. 28, and Wayne 
State University will close at 
4 p.m. on Tuesday and reopen 
on Thursday. An additional 72 
public schools in the Metro 
Detroit area are scheduled to 
close Tuesday.

Michigan’s state government 
offices in the Lower Peninsula 
also 
shut 
down 
due 
to 
emergency 
snow 
conditions 
Monday morning. Gov. Gretchen 
Whitmer issued a statement 
saying the offices plan to reopen 
Tuesday.
“This is about keeping all 
Michiganders safe,” Whitmer 
wrote in the statement. “All 
motorists are encouraged to stay 
off of the roads. If you must be 
out, please drive safely in these 
dangerous weather conditions 
and be respectful of road crews 
working to clear snow and ice.”
University to monitor weather 
conditions
University 
spokeswoman 
Kim 
Broekhuizen 
said 
the 
University is paying attention 
to the current situation. Going 
forward, 
Broekhuizen 
said 
administrators 
will 
make 
decisions 
about 
canceling 
classes accordingly.
“The university is closely 
monitoring 
the 
weather 
forecast for later this week,” 

Broekhuizen wrote in an email 
interview with The Daily.
Regardless of the University’s 
official decision, some students 
are considering staying home in 
the coming days as temperatures 
are 
predicted 
to 
plummet. 
Engineering sophomore Jake 
Kovalic said none of his classes 
have been canceled, but he 
thinks 
the 
snowy 
and 
icy 
conditions will have an impact 
on campus operations. A low 
temperature 
of 
negative 
17 
degrees Fahrenheit is predicted 
for Wednesday with possible 
wind chills as low as 40 degrees 
below 
zero 
Tuesday 
night 
through 
Thursday 
morning, 
according 
to 
the 
National 
Weather Service.
“Last week it was very icy, 
and at least one of the days, 
every surface was iced,” Kovalic 
said. “I would hope they cancel 
classes. I’ll see how the weather 
is on Wednesday, but I might not 
go either way.”

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
Tuesday, January 29, 2019 — 3

ACTIVISTS
From Page 1

SNOW
From Page 1

Enrolled 
students 
are 
frequently put in contact with 
employers on Capitol Hill, the 
Smithsonian and within the 
federal bureaucracy.
According 
to 
PSIP 
Supervisor 
Lynn 
Halton, 
also an alum of the program, 
PSIP sees students all the 
way through the internship 
application 
process, 
and 
provides further guidance and 
accommodations once students 
begin their summer work.
“Once 
they’re 
hired 
for 
internships in D.C., they have 
housing, 
we 
connect 
them 
up with one-on-one alumni 
mentors and we plan policy 
talks and social events for 
them,” Halton said.
For undergraduates enrolled 
in 
PSIP, 
the 
first 
several 

months of the year are typically 
when internship applications 
open up and students begin 
looking into job opportunities. 
Due to the shutdown, Halton 
and other faculty advisors have 
been forced to contend with the 
difficulty of communicating 
with employers in the public 
sector.
“There isn’t staff there,” she 
said. “For the agencies that are 
closed, there is no one there 
to answer. If someone sends 
a resume, we don’t know if 
they’ve received it. The process 
has definitely been slowed by 
that.”
Ben Schuster, a Business 
sophomore in PSIP, has already 
submitted several applications 
through 
the 
University 
program. Schuster hopes to 
secure an internship in the 
Federal Reserve, a policy think 
tank or on Capitol Hill in the 
office of a U.S. senator.

“I’ve applied to a few places, 
and I haven’t heard back from 
one of them yet,” Schuster said. 
“It’s a little concerning, but it’s 
understandable.”
Schuster 
thinks 
this 
lack of response is because 
maintaining 
internship 
programs is not necessarily the 
top priority for the countless 
government 
agencies 
PSIP 
partners 
with. 
Even 
with 
the newly passed continuing 
resolution, it still may take 
some time for agencies to pick 
up their work at full capacity.
Furthermore, 
it 
remains 
unclear 
if 
Democrats 
and 
Republicans will come to an 
agreement within the three-
week 
time 
period, 
failure 
of which would result in a 
continued shutdown.
Because of this, Schuster 
explains, many of his peers 
have had to work around gaps 
in the system to ensure their 

applications reach the proper 
employers in Washington, D.C.
“One of my friends knew a 
woman who had a connection 
to a certain agency that he 
wanted to work for,” Schuster 
explained. 
“She 
attempted 
to go into the agency’s site to 
let people know that he was 
applying, and she was unable 
to do that because of the 
shutdown. It’s small things like 
that. And in terms of priorities, 
when the government shuts 
down, it’s more important to 
make sure workers are getting 
paid.”
Another 
PSIP 
student, 
LSA 
sophomore 
Maeve 
Skelly, 
echoed 
Schuster’s 
disillusionment 
with 
the 
difficulty of communicating 
with employers in the public 
sector.
“There’s definitely been a 
slowdown in terms of response 
time,” Skelly said. “A lot of 

students will email government 
programs about an internship 
and not hear back for a longer 
period of time.”
Nonetheless, during the last 
month, Halton and other faculty 
coordinators at PSIP were able 
to work around obstacles posed 
by the shutdown through the 
program’s numerous contacts 
in Washington, D.C.
Perhaps the most helpful 
resource for PSIP students has 
been the program’s connections 
with alumni. According to 
Halton, during the last 50 
years, a number of bureaucrats, 
politicians and public-sector 
employers have passed through 
PSIP as undergraduates at the 
University of Michigan.
“There 
are 
two 
representatives in the U.S. 
House that are Michigan PSIP 
alums: 
Lauren 
Underwood 
from Illinois and Ted Deutch 
from Florida,” Halton said. 

“I’ve been in contact with both 
of their chiefs of staff and been 
trying to connect up so our 
students could be there. They 
both say that them being in 
public policy and the public 
arena has evolved from being 
in our program.”
Despite the uncertainty and 
obstacles 
faced 
during 
the 
last month, Halton remains 
optimistic. As she explains, the 
experience of working through 
roadblocks 
in 
government 
should be seen as a lesson for 
undergraduates heading down 
a career path in public service.
“From a career perspective, 
I think it is a good point 
for students to realize that 
working in the private sector 
is different from working in 
the 
public 
sector,” 
Halton 
said. “It’s kind of a learning 
opportunity to realize when 
you’re a public servant, things 
can be different — these things 

“One of the purposes of 
the 
special 
conference 
on 
Friday was to hear directly 
from GEO members about this 
topic,” Fitzgerald said. “The 
University acknowledges the 
courage and commitment of 
those who shared their stories 
Friday afternoon and these 
stories have helped to inform 
the process in a productive 
way.”
In 
April 
2017, 
members 
of the Trans Health Caucus 
threatened to walk out of 
contract 
negotiations 
with 
HR due to inadequate trans 
healthcare coverage. Since, the 
Trans Health Caucus and HR 
have been engaged in a series 
of special conferences as part 
of the collective bargaining 
process to address the GEO’s 
demands.
In March 2018, the GEO 
also raised awareness about 
trans 
healthcare 
coverage 
by hosting a Trans Day of 
Disposability rallyin the Diag. 
The conferences and rally put 
pressure on the University to 
adapt their policies related to 
gender transition procedures, 
but many Trans Health Caucus 
members said they still felt 
unheard and ignored by HR.
Ansel Neunzert, Rackham 
student and GEO member, 
stood 
outside 
of 
Friday’s 

special conference in support 
of the Trans Health Caucus. 
They said they hoped the 
conference 
would 
force 
University 
officials 
to 
acknowledge the experience 
of trans students when making 
decisions 
about 
healthcare 
coverage.
“I really hope that today 
they’re going to hear from a lot 
of trans people about the ways 
that this stuff impacts them, 
and get a sense of the fact that 
this isn’t an abstract discussion 
about the University’s bottom 
line — this is people’s lives,” 
Neunzert said. “I think it’s 
really valuable to get that 
first-hand information in a 
way that I don’t think HR and 
the MBAC (Medical Benefit 
Advisory 
Committee) 
have 
heard yet.”
According to Monica Lewis, 
Rackham student and chair of 
the Trans Health Caucus, the 
University agreed to convene 
every four months to discuss 
transgender 
healthcare 
coverage but has missed the 
deadline 
to 
arrange 
these 
meetings twice since April 
2018. 
“One of the major red flags 
that they weren’t taking this 
seriously was that there was a 
contractual deadline violation, 
namely 
literally 
the 
only 
stipulation in the contract 
that sets out rules for these 
meetings is that we have to 
meet every four months, and 

they missed the four-month 
deadline,” 
Lewis 
said. 
“In 
September, they missed the 
four-month deadline again. I 
think it was kind of over the 
summer of 2018 that we were 
like, yeah, this is not going 
anywhere and we’re going 
to have to get a little more 
aggressive with them.”
University 
spokeswoman 
Kim Broekhuizen said the 
University is still discussing 
the healthcare concerns with 
GEO.
“We have been meeting with 
GEO in good faith to discuss 
and review our transgender 
benefits,” Broekhuizen wrote.
Though asked about missing 
the 
four-month 
deadline 
for 
transgender 
healthcare, 
Kim did not comment on the 
allegation from Lewis.
To 
provide 
HR 
representatives 
with 
the 
medical background needed 
to participate in the special 
conferences, 
the 
University 
called two MBAC meetings 
in June and October 2018. 
The meetings, which were 
led by Philip Zazove, chair 
of 
Family 
Medicine 
at 
Michigan Medicine, aimed to 
discuss healthcare coverage 
with 
medical 
professionals 
and advise HR about what 
procedures to cover under 
GradCare. 
Zazove did not respond to 
request for comment.
Lewis said the details of 

these 
meetings 
were 
not 
immediately 
available 
to 
the 
Trans 
Health 
Caucus, 
and the board members had 
little experience with trans 
healthcare 
before 
making 
their recommendations.
“The kind of people who 
were on this coverage review 
were 
primarily 
old-school 
physicians who don’t have any 
specialization in trans care 
whatsoever,” Lewis said. “So a 
bunch of cis people are going to 
meet behind closed doors and 
decide whether or not they feel 
these transition procedures 
are cosmetic and we don’t get 
any say in the matter?”
Fitzgerald 
said 
while 
the 
University 
is 
still 
in 
the 
process 
of 
negotiating 
more extensive transgender 
healthcare 
with 
the 
GEO, 
GradCare coverage includes 
many 
gender-affirming 
surgeries and is on par with 
most public institutions.
“The University’s coverage 
of gender-affirming services 
meets or exceeds that currently 
offered by the majority of our 
national 
peer 
institutions,” 
Fitzgerald said.
Lewis 
and 
Morgan 
Whitcomb, Rackham student 
and member of the Trans 
Health Caucus, said they took 
issue with how University 
officials seemed to exclude 
trans voices from the MBAC 
meetings and comply with 
insurance 
policies 
that 
do 

not 
cover 
gender-affirming 
surgeries.
According to MBAC meeting 
notes from June 2018 the 
Trans Health Caucus obtained 
through 
the 
Freedom 
of 
Information Act and given 
to The Daily, the Michigan 
Medicine plastic surgery team 
deemed 
facial 
feminization 
and 
chondrolaryngoplasty 
(Adam’s 
apple 
reduction) 
medically necessary, but the 
insurance 
providers 
Blue 
Cross Blue Shield and Blue 
Care Network of Michigan 
identified them as cosmetic. 
Whitcomb said the lack of 
trans people present in MBAC 
meetings contributed to this 
discrepancy.
“They 
don’t 
want 
to 
acknowledge that trans people 
are 
experts 
in 
their 
own 
healthcare,” Whitcomb said. 
“They have this disconnect 
of ‘Well, there’s like doctors 
have trained for this.’ The 
difference 
is 
they 
haven’t 
trained to be experts in trans 
care — they’re experts in 
other fields and they’re trying 
to apply that knowledge to 
a different community and 
problem without consulting 
the community.”
The Trans Health Caucus 
has received support from 
transgender students, allies 
and 
the 
Rackham 
Student 
Government 
since 
the 
first special conference in 
December 2017. In a November 

2018 letter obtained by The 
Daily that GEO sent to MBAC 
with 
419 
signatures, 
the 
organization urged MBAC to 
“act with compassion to those 
over whom you currently wield 
significant power.” 
On 
Dec. 
13, 
2018, 
the 
RSG 
unanimously 
passed 
a resolution in support of 
expanding GradCare coverage 
for gender-affirming surgery. 
10 representatives abstained 
from the vote.
Friday’s special conference, 
which included a personal 
perspectives 
section 
where 
Trans Health Caucus members 
recounted their experiences 
with 
gender 
dysphoria, 
persuaded HR to cover fertility 
preservation under GradCare. 
Lewis said that while it was a 
victory for the Trans Health 
Caucus, the process to achieve 
it was a difficult one with more 
work to be done.
“It 
sucks 
that 
some 
people have to talk about 
suicidal 
ideation 
with 
HR 
representatives in order to 
get healthcare,” Lewis said. 
“And it sucks that that’s where 
we are at in the process, is 
that is talking about graphic 
descriptions 
of 
gender 
dysphoria with HR and MBAC. 
It sucks that that’s what it 
took, but if that’s what makes 
progress, hopefully we don’t 
have to do it again.”

GEO
From Page 1

PSIP
From Page 1