Cost of state benefits
EDITOR: Italics and bold added. If this article upsets you with its portrayal of State Workers as lazy, greedy, targets click the BDN Staff link and email them to let them know that you are Mainers and you expected to be able to trust your government. BDN Staff
As state government wrestles over the next 18 months with a revenue shortfall projected at $95 million, it’s time to consider the cost of state employee benefits.
As is the case in the private sector, the cost of providing health insurance benefits to state employees has grown in recent years. Yet state employees have not been asked to shoulder the burden of those increasing costs. Shifting a portion of the increases to employees, in the form of higher premiums and co-payments, could yield savings that ultimately allow the state to preserve jobs.
Currently, the state pays the entire cost of health, dental and life insurance premiums for its employees. Few would suggest that state government move away from providing health insurance to employees and their dependents. Collectively, Maine benefits with more of its residents having access to affordable health insurance, and therefore access to timely and preventive health care.
..........state workers paying higher co-payments for physician visits and prescriptions, and meeting higher deductibles, seems fair. .................
Compensation packages for 12,236 of the 13,428 state employees come through collective bargaining agreements. Negotiating those contracts with a goal of reducing a benefit..........can be done — .
........consider the city of Bangor’s health insurance benefits. ......the least expensive health insurance plan offered to single employees includes a $1,000 deductible, and prescription co-payment of $10, $25 or $40. .............with the city picking up......80 percent, of the cost of the insurance.
Yet another......savings for the state could come in indexing health insurance premiums based on salary. Why should someone making $70,000 a year pay the same amount as someone making $35,000?
.......generous benefit packages, .......are out of balance with the private sector and costing taxpayers.
Here is one of the an eloquent and honest answer to these attacks. Only answers like these, and emails to the legislature will preserves the benefits you have already paid for.
Dear BDN:
Once again, as in years past, pot-shots are being taken at state employees as a way to balance the state budget. According to one such ad on the radio daily, it praises the governor for his work in cutting $38,000, 000 without raising taxes, while bemoaning the fact that unless he gets rid of ‘too many state employees and their benefits, which are better than most’, he probably be forced to raise taxes on everyone in the state.
Well, let me say this about that. Number one, state employees are taxpayers as well, so if taxes must be raised, we will be paying the increases as well. Number two, when this ad talks about our healthcare benefits being ‘better than most’ – please be aware that these have been paid for by our years of service to this state, via contract negotiations, etc. Many of us decided to work for the state primarily because we looked down the road and anticipated that healthcare would be vital to our survival.
As it is, when I inquired about retirement, I was told by Social Security that at age 65, if I retired, I would be required to have Medicare as my primary coverage and that my state coverage would act as a back-up (and to me that meant my prescription coverage would be intact). I would have to pay the Medicare Part A, which currently stands at $96.40 a month and has a $135.00 deductible, plus paying 20% of most of the other ‘services’ covered. This is where I was ‘assuming’ my state healthcare coverage would pick up the slack. Now, I’m under the impression that anyone over 65 and on Medicare will be dropped from company/state based policies and that would mean taking out supplemental insurance to pay prescription costs.
Another article that has appeared regarding getting rid of state workers, make me wonder, if they can violate Union contracts and get rid of us, does that mean that we can strike to attempt to retain our benefits and jobs? Currently, that is part of the Union agreement with the state in that we are not permitted to strike, no matter what type of contract is negotiated, whether shut-down days, furlough days, no increases in cost-of-living, etc., are handed down..
I would suggest that if it is so necessary to reduce the workforce, some decent retirement incentives would certainly get rid of a lot of employees with 20+ years service. Some of these individuals have the years of service in, but are younger than the 59 years or 62 years of age wherein they could retire without a 6% penalty per year because they are younger than 59 or 62 (this age being dependent upon when an employee was hired into state service).
Sincerely,
Nancy W. Worcester Thank you Nancy Worcester
You will notice that the writer ignores the fact that many employees did work for years to pay for their benefits. Paid in advance. They want to forget all the years of salaries lower than the private sector that paid for those benefits. I want the writer to tell me he supports cutting the benefits for State troopers and to tell them to retire at 62 instead of 55. I want the writer to cancel the warranty on his car because Chevy is having it tough. It doesn't matter that he paid for the warranty, paid for the car, Chevy is having it tough. Go give back the warranty.
- October 23, 2003 
