From Crain's:Public employees should contribute to their health premiums to help stem the steady increase in health costs for the city, a new report by the Citizens Budget Commission recommends.
Today, more than 90% of city workers are enrolled in health insurance plans that require no employee contribution toward the cost of the premium, the budget watchdog found. Requiring current workers and retirees to chip in for their health insurance would drive down the city’s deficit and bring New York in line with other large cities that have employee contributions.
“The city has an unusual arrangement as compared to the private sector,” said Maria Doulis, director of city studies at the CBC, and the report’s principal author. “Nobody is offering health insurance to employees and retirees on as generous a basis as the city of New York.”
The cost of health insurance for city public employees and retirees has skyrocketed in the last 10 years to $4.8 billion in 2012 from $2 billion in 2002. The CBC cites this growth as a major driver of projected budget gaps. While the total city budget is projected to grow 11% from fiscal years 2012 to 2016, health insurance costs will grow by almost 40% and comprise 70% of the projected budget gap in 2016.
15 comments:
I'm a public employee. I don't remember ever NOT contributing.
Let's see ! I take a job with set benefits and salary and during my contract with you it will be breeched. That sounds fair ? How about negotiating the changes in the future contract ? Just my 2 cents.....
How about focusing on why insurance premiums have skyrocketed every single year or health care costs. That is what the focus should be on, not trying to screw working people over.
just a question. Do city contracts with employees/vendors become null and void if the city ever files for bankruptcy?
To answer the question above: Yes. Cities and other units of local government can go bankrupt. Part of the bankruptcy is voiding contracts. Typically states step in to mitigate the damage.
Why doesn't the government do what private employers do and pay-as-you-go for current year benefits, and switch to defined-contribution retirement plans?
The idea that ever-increasing government costs can be shifted to future taxpayers is unsustainable.
As for why health care costs keep rising - since so many people get it "for free" and have no choice where and how they obtain it - it's natural that suppliers raise prices each year.
How about focusing on why insurance premiums have skyrocketed every single year or health care costs.
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Thats simple. Two reasons, really.
One, everyone wants to hang on till they are 130 years old. When you used to die at 60, you maybe had one or two major medical issues in your life. When you live to 90, you are likely going to have 3 or 5 or more major medical conditions. You are now using the system 2-3x more.
Second, we are treating a wider range of conditons now. It used to be say, if you had cancer, they could only treat people with a low level conditon. They had no solution for someone with a severe/late stage development, so they were just told nothing can be done. Now, with newer technology, we can treat some late stage cancers better, with advanced (expensive) equipment.
Third, *how* we treat conditions changed. If you came in to a hospital with a concussion 40 years ago, *maybe* you got an x-ray, but mostly you got some aspirin and were told to rest. Now everyone goes into an MRI tube and sees a specialist.
You want lower cost health care? Then you cant expect much beyond band-ads, paster casts and a low-power xray.
I worked for the city 29 years and always paid a premium.Now that i am retired i also pay a premium. I get less benefits than when i was active and pay nearly as much.My vision coverage is almost zero.I'll gladly pay more if i get better benefits.........
I'm a public employee. I don't remember ever NOT contributing. Ditto. There are also things that city employees get that are usually part of health insurance, but are not included for city employees. Prescription benefits (with few exceptions like chemo, insulin, and fertility drugs) are NOT a part of any city health plan that I have ever seen. Drugs are typically paid for by city employee unions. That is a HUGE savings to medical insurance costs.
Congress doesn't contribute to their health plan.
Maybe if union dues weren't so high, employees could afford to pay higher health insurance costs.
with out public servant union dues being laundered to the political party , machine bribe takers, the salaries and benefit contracts negotiated would not bankrupt the city/state governments.
btw, obamacare exempted the major private and public UNIONS and friends of Pelosi , until 2018. union employees will not have to pay income taxes on their health care package, like the rest of the earning public.
I'm a federal employee, and as a single, male I pay $84 every 2 weeks towards my health care premiums, plus co-pays, deductibles, etc.
Screw it, I'll quit and go on Medicaid.
One, everyone wants to hang on till they are 130 years old. When you used to die at 60, you maybe had one or two major medical issues in your life. When you live to 90, you are likely going to have 3 or 5 or more major medical conditions. You are now using the system 2-3x more.
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Health care started to go up during the AIDS crisis - now we have people eating junk food and glued to a TV. A lot of health costs are lifestyle issues....
according to yesterday's I.R.S. report, the cheapest obamacare insurance health care policy for a family of four will be $20,000 per year.
see:Drudge Report
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