There was a good letter to the editor today in the Press regarding teachers paying towards their own health insurance I thought readers would be interested in reading.
Health proposal too easy on teachers
Gov. Chris Christie suggests that teachers should be required to pay 1.5 percent of their base pay toward their own health insurance premiums. Since many teachers now pay nothing, I guess one could say that this is an improvement. But there are problems with this plan.
The average N.J. teacher would pay $855 of a premium that is likely more than $15,000. We taxpayers will pay the rest. Nevertheless, you can bet that the teachers and their militant union will still cry bloody murder.
The underlying problem is that no one in the private sector pays a percentage of our salary toward insurance. We pay a percentage of the insurance premium. That makes a big difference in how we feel about the kind of insurance we get. If we are paying 50 percent of the premiums ourselves, you can be darn sure that we are going to ask our employer to eliminate costs anyway possible. We will ask them to get a cheaper policy without all the bells and whistles. In other words, we don't want to be paying half the costs of a "Cadillac" policy.
But if teachers are going to pay $855, and it has no relation to the policy they get, they obviously will demand the biggest, best and costliest plan available.
We must tell the teachers that the gravy train is over and that they will now, finally, be required to cough up 50 percent of their own insurance premiums. Then let's see how fast they trip all over themselves trying to find more "affordable" insurance.
MICHAEL GARRETT
Sussex
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Good Letter to Editor today
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5 comments:
This is a reasonable and fair proposal. It won't be implemented, of course.
I notice the teachers have refrained from writing in to call us all jealous. I GUESS YOU FINALLY GET IT!!! We have had enough and now, everyone including our leaders are not afraid to call a pig a pig.
That would be a smart,fair way to tackle the benefit quagmire.
Just did a search on my recent letter to the editor. To my surprise, I found it posted here.
I've been fighting the teachers union up here in Sussex for several years. And I will say that up until recently, very few people were willing to join me for "fear" of reprisals (I could tell you some stories of things that occur when you take on the union thugs. One incident involved an attack on my farm that resulted in an FBI investigation and criminal charges.) Anyway, I am encouraged that taxpayers are finally waking up. They've had it with the teachers. And they are fighting back! Good for them. Maybe we can finally start winning some of these battles.
Mike Garrett
Shale Hills Farm
Sussex, NJ
Trees@ShaleHillsFarm.com
Mr. Garrett, this was a well written letter and trust me, the NJEA is getting a run for its money this year. All the towns are fed up. Layoffs everywhere, unemployment up, budget cuts everywhere and NJEA doesn't care about anyone but themselves. The children, my ass. Freeze the wages, pay into your benefits like everyone else has to and they still have it pretty good. Instead of being grateful for that they have, they just want more and more.
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