****TRAGIC OP-ED!**** TRAGICS very own John Palmer and Jack Bernard have written an Op-Ed on the TRAGIC cuts to our health insurance for the Columbus Ledger-Inquirer! Here is the link: ledger-enquirer/2014/10/25/3374655_unkindest-cuts.html?rh=1 Please share this editorial on your pages! Also, please submit the article (copied below) to YOUR local papers and ask that they run it! Local editors are more likely to respond to local readers when choosing editorial content. There are 650,000 Georgians affected by the SHBP, but only 16,600 on this page. We can help spread the word! Cutting Public Employee Benefits is TRAGIC! By Jack Bernard and John Palmer Traditionally, there has been an unwritten pact between state and local public employees (teachers included) and government. Salaries did not compare to the private sector, but pooling the resources of teachers and state employees allowed the state to offer excellent benefits. Since the Great Recession of 2007, this fundamental compact has been broken in Georgia. State and local government are no longer upholding their end of the deal. Public employees still have abysmal pay scales, worsened by the unpaid “furlough days” that amount to a pay cut. In many school districts, wages have been frozen, or even reduced. When one accounts for inflation, many teachers are making less money now than when they started their careers. Worst of all, teachers and state employees are also finding that their State Health Benefit Plan (SHPB) benefits have been slashed year after year. The Governor, Legislature and Insurance Commissioner have all cynically blamed benefit cuts on Obamacare, crassly assuming those affected will not know any better. However, the Affordable Care Act has nothing at all to do with the state cutting $200 million from the employees’ health benefits budget last year (note: half was restored after a public outcry going into an election year). Nor did it have anything to do with the state using over $500 million of SHBP reserves to help balance the state budget between 2009 - 2010. Due directly to these cuts, premiums are rising while deductibles and co-pays have gone up to the point where the health of employees is compromised. In the wealthiest nation in the history of mankind, public servants, including our teachers, are putting off their own care because they just cannot afford it. For example, under the plans offered for 2015, the annual premiums plus out of pocket in-network maximums cost the employee between $14,318.16 - $18,523.60. The amount an employee would have to pay on the “Bronze” HRA (out-of-network) before insurance paid at 100% is $27,124.80! In a state where many teachers are commonly paid around $40,000, it is no wonder that people are leaving the field for greener pastures. As one Tragic member put it: “I went to the Obamacare website last night. Plugged in our information and found out that if I quit my parapro job we could get insurance for less than half the price of what were being offer through SHBP. I provide insurance for my family. Where is the incentive for the lower wage earners to keep working?” Last January, teachers and other public employees founded a grass roots organization, Teachers Rally to Advocate for Georgia Insurance Choices (TRAGIC) to advocate for public employees regarding benefits. Since then, over 16,400 people have joined via its Facebook page. TRAGIC has gathered examples of the obstacles hard working teachers and others have faced when trying to get decent healthcare for themselves and their families. A few TRAGIC member quotes are given below: Member 1. “A level 2 mammogram last year cost me over $1200 out of pocket because of these high deductibles. I understand why women forgo these & end up with cancer. Sad.” Member 2. “I had RTKR (knee surgery) on June 3 and getting bills and cant believe how much I still owe. It seems it is going to be almost $12,000 and I am in the top Gold Plan on my Insurance Plan. I am Retired and Single-Divorced. I think this is way too much to owe.” Member 3. “I dont suppose they are going to retroactively reimburse me for reaching our $10,000 out of pocket maximum because I just happened to be pregnant. I dont know how we are going to pay our medical bills or recover from the extreme hardship this awful year of experimentation has caused.” Member 4. “I will come close to bankruptcy this year due to our pitiful and painful insurance changes. My brother is a cop in a very small town, but his health insurance premiums are half the price with much better coverage as well as a much lower deductible.” In a post-industrial, information age world economy, societies that emphasize education will do well; others will not. In this vein, is this really how we want to treat our Georgia educators and other public servants? If we are going to ask teachers and state employees to take care of Georgia’s children, we must make sure they can afford to take care of their own families first. Bios: - Jack Bernard was the first director of Health Planning for the state of Georgia. He also served as a senior level executive with several national health care firms. - John Palmer is a teacher in Marietta, GA, and a spokesperson/administrator with TRAGIC (Teachers Rally to Advocate for Georgia Insurance Choices).
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 17:43:44 +0000
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