FREEEEEDOM! Except for state employees, they can go screw.

I don't understand this point of view, at all.

A couple of years ago my District went to the employees with an idea to change dental plans.  I thought that, all things considered, it was a fairly moderate proposal.  They met with everyone in my building, certificated and classified, and presented.

They left running with their asses firmly held in their hands, because any time you talk about changing benefits people get really, really antsy.

That was a good 8 years ago.  Last year there was the proposal to move all school employees into one pool, an idea which only passed in the dead of night at the last day of the session, embarrassing the PSE of Washington in the process, which was the single best organizing tool that the WEA has ever been handed since I've been involved.

Point is, people get really, really touchy about their health benefits.  They should.  They're a big deal.  The notion that Senator Tom is putting out with this bill, that these new programs should be pushed down from administrators onto their underlings because it's the administrators who know best, is ridiculous.

There is nothing that will make employee wellness programs fail faster than leaving out the employees when you design them.

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Health Care Isn't Really My Thing...

....but I'm having a very hard time seeing how health care reform would be the death of liberty in America.

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As the Father of a Special Needs Child, This Scares Me

The impact of I-1033 on county health budgets.

The people at the Spokane Regional Health District were invaluable during the first three years of my daughters life, after she was diagnosed with her profound deafness and we worked through all the other various diagnoses that came up along the way; the thought that parents might not have access to that is troubling.

More here from the Washington State Budget and Policy Center.

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Health Insurance Redux

The other day I chided Rep. Condotta for his attack on insurance benefits for public employees; today's mail brought more ammunition.

My district offers 12 different insurance plans, which in and of itself might be a problem. Today I got a packet about our upcoming benefits fair that contained a spreadsheet comparing all of the plans that we offer, showing what the co-pays are, deductibles, benefits, etc.

I'm on the Group Health $15 Copay Plan, which is by far the most expensive of the Group Health plans but looks reasonable when compared to Premera. Go down to the lines about "Hospitalization" and "Outpatient Surgery" and you'll see why the thought of one of Rep. Condotta's high deductible plans terrifies me:

Hospitalization
$15 Copay Plan: $300 maximum copay, then covered in full
$500 Deductible Plan: $1,000 maximum copay, then covered at 80% after deductible is satisfied.

Outpatient Surgery
$15 Copay Plan: $15 copay
$500 Deductible Plan: $100 copay, then covered at 80% after deductible is satisfied.

I've talked before about my profoundly deaf daughter. Her left ear works for now with a hearing aide, but her ENT doctor has said that she could easily be a cochlear implant candidate if her hearing degenerated any farther. Given that the surgery and equipment can cost $50,000 a shot, even 80% coverage would still mean that I'm out $10,000 (or, 5 months of take-home salary) to pay for the procedure.

NYC Educator has been doing some incredible writing about health insurance, the health care industry, and how it all relates to teachers. My project for back to school, before I speak to the membership, will be to line up our health plans with the state offerings and see if they compare. If they do, maybe that's the way we go. If they don't, then we keep doing what we're doing.

It's going to be a fight either way.

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Why I Worry, Health Insurance Edition

Take a minute to let this press release from Rep. Cary Condotta wash over you:

"Let's get back to true insurance instead of prepaid health care. It worked before and it will work again," said Condotta. "Now if we could just make Health Savings Accounts available to all state employees, as is required under House Bill 1383 signed into law in 2006. This type of option could actually reduce costs and premiums for all plans. Now is the time for bold action to reverse the perverse cost increases in health care caused by low deductibles and co-pays. Steve Hill and the board have taken the first step, now let's get the HSA option in place and watch health care costs decline and people's health improve accordingly."

Get that? $15 co-pays and $100 deductibles are THE PROBLEM, and Rep. Condotta has a solution: health savings accounts! Never mind that there's ample evidence that HSAs make existing systemic problems even worse. Marguerite Roza of the University of Washington has written before about the "above average" health insurance that teachers receive, the clear implication being that we're getting something we haven't earned and that something should be done about it.

I carry the insurance load for my family. My wife is self-employed, and with my special needs daughter in the picture I'm a power user of our Group Health plan. This year I've paid $442.86 a month, and next year preliminary estimates say that it'll be more like $470. I also put $100 a month into an American Fiduciary flexible spending account, and I'll easily use all $1,200 of it before the year is done.

Granted, I'm not typical. Single employees, employees who are covered by their spouses, and employees with no kids in the home usually end up contributing to the insurance pool that gets split up among people like me who pay out-of-pocket. If you cover your family a proposal like Rep. Condotta's screws you over twice, when your rates go up AND there's less of a pool to help you out.

The problem that's been identified by everyone is the cost to the system. Any solution that relies on making things harder for teachers isn't a solution that deserves to go anywhere.

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Watch Kelly Linville Bait Joe Zarelli Into Bashing the WEA!

So Austin Jenkins was all, like, "Hey, schools cost money!" and Joltin' Joe was totally like, "Eh, the WEA is teh suxor", which made Kelli get all up in his bidness and try to nail him down on specifics, but then he started talking about health care and I fell asleep because the Basic Health Plan is both boring and will give you cancer, which is the kind of dichotomy that I should find fascinating but meh.

Seriously, though, I've heard this "Make teachers be on the Basic Health Plan" line before, and as a union guy I thank God every time that it comes up because that would be a wonderful gift for anyone trying to do organizing. It's useful, in a "Democrats want to take your guns away!" sort of scheme--it may not be true, but it gets attention.

Edit: Advanced embed, my ass. The good stuff starts at 49:30.

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