Sometimes it's hard to quantify just how out of touch some labor leaders are. Then they go and open their mouths and say absolutely silly things like this.
According to the head of the state employee's labor union, SEIU Local 2008 (formerly SEANC), Dana Cope, requiring state employees "to pay their own health insurance premium would set a bad precedent."
A bad precedent? You mean they'd actually have to pay premiums like most other private sector employees? God forbid they actually have some skin in the game and start thinking of things like cost containment and whether they are getting good value for their health insurance.
It's free now, so why worry about how much things cost? As long as they can afford the $20 co-pay, who cares what effect any treatment they seek will have on premium cost. Let's not make the employees receiving the benefit pay, the taxpayers of North Carolina can just continue to pick up the tab, we've got unlimited funds.
Maybe Mr. Cope should take a look at the most recent results of our Civitas Poll which said that 50 percent of voters thought state employees should pay to bailout the State Health Plan while only 27 percent of voters thought the taxpayers should continue to shoulder the load.
One of the often refrains from labor leaders like Mr. Cope is they want state employees to be treated like professionals. Well, except like all the other professional people out there who have to pay something for their health insurance — if it comes to that they'd rather continue to have the free lunch.
Most businesses don’t make employees pay $500 for family coverage, a premium that lawmakers might raise to $640 a month.
Define “most.” Every business (small or large) I’ve worked for was at least that much if not more.
Here at Civitas, our family plan is close to $900 a month.
So you’re not going to get any sympathy for me on that one.
Here’s one definition of most from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s 2008 survey of insurance costs.
“The average annual worker contributions for single and family coverage are $721 and $3,354 respectively.”
$3,534 a year comes to $294.50 a month. Sounds like you guys aren’t getting such a good deal there at Civitas.
Such is the life for an average small business that has just a few employees and thus no ability to spread risk in the pool.
Yet, we push for things like Association Health Plans (AHPs) to help pool small businesses together to reduce costs and are rebuffed at every attempt.
Or when we good ideas like equalizing the tax treatments so individuals are more inclined to purchase health insurance on their own, it’s shot down as a tax increase.
You fail to mention that public sector (State) jobs typically pay smaller salaries than their private sector counterparts. Providing “free” health coverage is one way the state tries to make up the difference.
If the state needs to reduce cost to the EMPLOYEES’ health plan, perhaps they should take the 100k+ welfare kids out of the program. They have no business being there.
Let’s not forget about the retirees enrolled in the system, producing a projected unfunded liability of $29 Billion.
http://redclaycitizen.typepad.com/redclay/2008/12/5-billion-in-two-years.html
Our family is very blessed that my husband’s job pays nearly all of our medical expenses, save a measly $25 co-pay at doctor’s offices and a $50 co-pay for emergency room visits and other various hospital costs.
However, even our costs are rising. Vision, which used to be covered in full, is barely covered. (I’m not expecting sympathy, mind you),and dental is going down also.
My point is that EVERYONE’S insurance is going down hill. Rob, my hubby, has worked for his company (Alcatel-Lucent; formerly Alcatel) for 20 years and that’s a rarity for our generation (age 42). Rob is bright and had his Master’s in EE at age 22 and has earned everything. I do not share his intelligence or his skills.
I wish that Dana Cope and the State Employees Union would get real. The State Employees seem to feel that for their suffering (in one of the worst work places in the state), they should be entitled to all these goodies.
However, this former state employee got off that train when she grew tired of it and, gasp, got a job in the private sector. Others at Civitas did, the same. I didn’t sit around waiting for my “retirement”.
Wish I knew why the others did, and why they allowed Cope to join this nasty union in the first place.
Porter Jennings…you can’t possibly be serious? As far as someone saying that government employees get less pay, that’s quite a misnomer when you factor in vacation policy and mandated days off. Government employees are waist-deep in a river and dying of thirst.