Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Folks, the Camden County Jobs Program Insurance Committee needs your help.
Apparently, from the moving testimony heard last night, most of the county employees have worked so long and loyally for Camden County that they are completely out of touch with the realities of the private sector. As you know, the majority of your county commissioners voted last night to abdicate their responsibility to set the county health plan benefits and rates to the employees themselves. Clearly, the Employee Health Insurance Committee needs some up-to-date info on the actual cost of comparable plans in the private sector. Now, we know from past experience that if I solicit anonymous input via the comments section of this blog, lying TOPIX vermin and self-interested county employees will queer the resulting info. Therefor, I would ask that some of you who work in the real world would e-mail me what you are currently paying per month for coverage for your whole family at your place of employment in the private sector. When I publish the results, your indentity will be protected. Please let me know whether or not your full family coverage includes dental and if your plan is a PPO (preferred provider organization.) My e-mail address is jaymor@tds.net. Thank you.
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12 comments:
Jay,
I pay $73.85 on a bi-weekly basis for coverage for me and my spouse. Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
Sorry Jay I meant to add that my BCBS plan does not include dental or vision and it is a PPO. The really good part of my plan is there is no medical cap. So if I should ever need a transplant of any kind, they can't cap it out.
Thank you for that info. Going to my shedule of Camden County health plan premiums, I find that the bi-weekly premium for an employee and spouse - health only - is a mere $44.48, versus your $73.85. The proposed increase was to $49.43, a mere $4.95 per pay period increase, by the way.
Let's run the numbers. When you annualize premiums and divide by 12,you find that you are paying $160.00/month vs. our county employee paying $96.37. You pay $1,920.10 annually versus the county employee's $1,156,48. That means, assuming that your covergae is not too dissimilar in terms of deductibles, co-pays, etc, so that it is representative of market prices, our county employee is payin 60% of market value of his coverage. We taxpayers are picking
up not only 40% of what he should be paying, but also 93% of ther plan's total cost.
Employees will quickly point out that you probably earn more than their lowest paid brethren. That is a complete and utter non-sequiter. The cost of a health plan is what is is regardless of the income of the individual participant. While I agree that it appears that county employees have been treated shabbily - especially with denial of COLAs, that is an entirely separate issue.
I would hardly think that $13.00 per hour is higher than most of the county employees hourly pay scale. I have some pretty substantial deductables if it is major medical it can go from $1000 to $3500 depending on the procedure.
What!? Do you mean to tell me that your employer does not charge his employees health premiums on a sliding scale according to their pay rate? That ogre!
Thanks for that further clarifcation.
Oh, and thanks to the eagle eye who so politely pointed out that
I misspelled non sequitur - a word I don't get to use very often.
Jay I just had to cancel my coverage. I can no longer afford the premiums. I was paying 92.00 bi-weekly with a 40.00 copay. This does'nt include the extra 9.00for dental.
In our employee meeting last friday we were told the cost was increasing to 132.00 bi-weekly due to the increase in claims. The company I work for has less than 500 employees. This will become effective July 1st.
I said all of this to say. I WOULD LOVE TO PURCHASE THE COUNTY INSURANCE THAT I AM REQUIRE TO SPONSOR THE EMPLOYEES WITH.
I'm sory to hear that. If you don't mind my asking, who all was covered in your family? Was that for just you?
me, husband and one child. I forgot to mention that the deductible is 1,500.00 per person.
My husband just reminded me it is 92.00 weekly increasing to 132.00 WEEKLY. We kept the dental but have to look for cheaper health.
Thanks for those clarifications. Now, I can do the math. So, you had family coverage with dental. Your premium in the private sector has just gone up to the equivalent of $572.00 per month. Now, let's see what Camden County emplyees are paying ofr the same coverage. That would be $53.63 bi-weekly, or $116.20 per month. County workers are paying a mre 20.3% of what you are paying. And yet, they are bitching about a proposed rate increase to $174.72, still only 30.54% of what you would have to pay if you could afford it.
County employees - are you getting the picture? Camden taxpayers - are you getting an eye-opener?
We need to slash the county welfare system for employees. They need to have to suffer some of the cuts like the rest of us. They have been spoiled rotten by an insurance program second to none. Tough times call for tough measures. You know what my heart pumps for them.
I ahgree with you 100% on the insurance program. As to whether or not we need to cut any employees, I don't have sufficient data to form a firm opinion. If I were elected, I would look into that. I would also look into employee pay. I don not think it is fair to balance the budget on the backs of the employees. Denying them their COLAs in lieu of a slight millage rate increase to cover them is patently unfair.
Thier not having had any raise in 10 years - if that is true - needs dealing with as well. However, insurance ratges should stand on their own, independent of pay issues.
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