In an article published Sunday April 17th Governor Christie detailed his latest Healthcare plan for state public employees.
The plan is estimated (by the Governor's office) to save the state 870 million dollars by the year 2014. The plan would reach this level of savings by raising healthcare contributions for public sector employees over the next 3 years from their current level of 1.5% to 30% by 2014.
If we prima facie accept the Governor's numbers as correct (as of this time they are unsubstantiated) the savings are quite impressive. This is especially true considering the current state of New Jersey's finances and the deficit that the state faces in a number of areas.
Of course before throwing any type of support behind a bill that increases cost of living for a large number of citizens of this state raises a couple of questions need answering.
The first question that comes to mind is how, if at all, is the Governor going to spend his new found savings? And with that question I would add is any portion of these funds going to benefit either the public workers or the public as a whole in the State of New Jersey or will the governor pocket the savings for the State and call it a day?
Considering the 10.5 billion dollar deficit the state is facing, the 1.2 billion dollar NJ Supreme Court decision on school funding that is pending, the 54 billion dollar deficit in the state's pension fund and the near bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund one cannot blame the Governor if he just decides to pocket the money.
Of course hearing the Governor say that and assuming that is what he is going to do are two entirely different things altogether and I have yet to read any newspaper headline or article that discusses what he plans to do with these savings.
Regardless of Christie's answer one has to feel for any workers, public or private, that are forced to pay any out of pocket increase in these tough economic times.
Following that notion the next question that needs answering is what is Governor Christie doing about driving down the cost of healthcare in a state that already has one of the highest costs of living in the country?
It is one thing to squeeze citizens and employees of this state for more money from their paychecks to cover healthcare costs but it is another thing altogether not to expect our vendors to bear some of the financial burden for our current economic condition. After all there is more than one way to reduce costs and our corporate vendors have to expect waxing and waning in rates with the good times with the bad
Additionally I would imagine that the large number of public workers in this state would act as an excellent bargaining chip with healthcare insurance providers. Bottom line is if you want to do business with our 500,000+ public employees you need to sharpen your pencil or move over for someone who will. This is how corporations would approach the problem so why shouldn't our government do the same?
As with the first question though I have yet to read any article or hear of any press conference discussing the governor pressing insurance companies for lower premiums. Paul Krugman posted an interesting blog the other day detailing how the inflation of healthcare costs has far outpaced CPI numbers as a refutation of Congressman Ryan's healthcare plan. It was shocking to view the inflation of healthcare costs over the last 30 years on a graph and must lead one to wonder why our headline grabbing Governor isn't taking on this issue that would surely be popular with the citizens of New Jersey.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/04/christie_estimates_changes_in.html#incart_mce
http://www.agc.org/galleries/conmark/NewJerseyfactsheet0207.pdf
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/08/nj_transportation_chief_critic.html
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/18/janitors-and-corporate-executives-have-the-same-pay-plan/
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