9/8/2011: Dennis Thompson of the SJ has a story and a long post on his excellent State Workers Blog:
I am proud of the work our union has done to help make health care more affordable not only for ourselves, but for everyone. In Oregon, we worked hard to get the Oregon Healthy Kids legislation passed, and won a grant to help sign up kids for health insurance. We have been instrumental in creating the prescription drug bulk purchasing pool, and have been active proponents of the Governor’s health care transformation initiative. Nationally we helped lead the way to the passage of the Affordable Heath Care Act. Our commitment to improving access to affordable, quality health care has not changed. However, I want to make it clear that our members have VERY SERIOUS CONCERNS over the Health Engagement Model, as it is currently being proposed. …
The additional cost to opt out of HEM (or to have your partner or spouse opt out) combined with other surcharges, fees and deductibles will be staggering! The cost savings to PEBB must be balanced with affordability for PEBB members and, given that we now are facing a monthly premium share, the financial impact of any opt-out is much greater and should be revisited. Preferably, this program would be set up as with an incentive if you opt in, rather than a penalty if you opt out. In my experience as a Mom and a Granny, as a lead worker and as a union president, I always get much better results by rewarding good behavior than by punishing or penalizing bad behavior.
The biggest problem with the HEM is that it might actually work and increase the life expectancy of Oregon’s state workers. This will reek havoc on the PERS retirement system and especially its generous annuity deal.
The inconvenient truth is that smokers save the state money, by dying sooner. Fining them, as HEM will do, is patently unfair and inefficient. Oregon taxpayers should reward smoking PERS members with subsidies. Not sure about those with waists over 40″.