Posted on 11/30/2009 6:43:32 AM PST by IbJensen
Even as Florida struggled with massive budget shortfalls, lawmakers and top state employees have received health-insurance perks costing taxpayers $45 million a year.
Top Florida lawmakers are balking at Congress' plans to help more poor people get healthcare, though they've protected an entitlement of their own: free insurance premiums.
Taxpayers have been stuck with covering the premiums -- at a cost of about $45 million a year -- even while lawmakers pledged to scrimp as they grappled with three straight years of budget shortfalls.
Florida doesn't limit the subsidies to statewide officeholders like Gov. Charlie Crist and Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, or to legislators like Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul. About 27,479 state employees -- many of them high-level bureaucrats and political appointees -- also get the break. So do their families.
``I think it's appropriate. I think it's part of the compensation package for a public servant,'' Crist said. ``It's a policy that has been supported by the Legislature and I'm comfortable with it.''
The governor plans to add his wife of nearly one year, wealthy businesswoman and philanthropist Carole Crist, as well as her two daughters from a previous marriage to his health plan on Jan. 1. The girls attend an all-girls private school in New York and live with their father, who owns a jet-rental company.
``There is not a residency requirement for coverage,'' explained Crist spokesman Sterling Ivey.
Only six other states offer free insurance premiums to some employees and their families, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Even members of Congress pay monthly fees for health benefits.
EARN $100,000-PLUS
Of the government workers who get free insurance premiums in Florida, 2,431 earn more than $100,000.
Some state officials said the health benefits should be reviewed in next year's budget talks after the Herald/Times raised questions. Other state government leaders defended the benefits -- even as they rail against proposals to allow more poor people to qualify for insurance through the federal Medicaid program. ``It seems to me we need to stop it in its tracks,'' Crist told the Broward Republican Party last week.
RUBIO BENEFITED
Crist's Republican rival for the U.S. Senate, former House Speaker Marco Rubio, also opposes the healthcare bills in Congress. He received premium-free insurance during his eight years in the Legislature and never proposed scaling back benefits to save tax dollars.
Rubio declined to comment for this story.
``I definitely think it's hypocritical,'' said Laura Goodhue, executive director of Florida CHAIN, which backs the Medicaid reforms. ``State legislators always have other priorities, but we're talking about health insurance for pregnant women, poor children and people who are disabled.''
BIG TAB
Under the legislation in Congress to expand Medicaid, the federal government would initially pick up all the tab for new recipients. But in three years, the state would have to start chipping in bigger sums of money.
By 2016, Florida taxpayers would have to spend about $1 billion more to help cover an additional 1.7 million Medicaid recipients under the House bill, which expands the program more than the Senate version.
Medicaid is already punching holes in Florida's budget and accounts for much of next year's projected budget shortfall of $2.7 billion.
`BUDGET WRECKER'
``This unfunded mandate is a budget wrecker for Florida and one we should not be forced to endure,'' said Atwater, the Republican Senate president, in a statement from his campaign for state chief financial officer -- a $129,000 post that also comes with subsidized health insurance.
Atwater said the generous benefits ``will certainly be part of the dialogue'' in next year's budget talks. Lawmakers ``have to be behaving in a way that is reflective of how every Floridian'' is cutting back, he said.
Attorney General Bill McCollum, who is running for governor in 2010, also said the premiums should be part of budget negotiations. He is not on the state health insurance plan and pays premiums to Blue Cross Blue Shield.
``Generally speaking, I believe every government employee should pay a portion of their health insurance premiums, and this is an issue the Legislature should examine,'' the Republican said in a statement.
OTHER VIEWS
His major Republican rival for governor, state Sen. Paula Dockery of Lakeland, who is on the state plan, said she is hesitant to take away benefits from public employees who have not received raises. The leading Democratic candidate for governor, Chief Financial Officer Sink, agreed.
``When you have employees who pay no premiums, it's a part of their total compensation package,'' Sink said. ``To me, of greater concern, is why we might have two classes of employees in state government: one class doesn't pay any premiums and the other class does. That certainly seems unfair to me.''
COMPARISON
About 100,000 state employees pay premiums. But they pay far less than the average Floridian.
The portion of premiums paid by those state workers grew by only 55 percent in the past decade, to $600 a year for individual plans and $2,160 for family coverage.
In contrast, Florida workers' premiums have skyrocketed at least 125 percent to an average of $1,133 for an individual plan and $4,697 for family coverage annually, according to a study by the liberal policy group Families USA. At the same time, their taxes picked up an increasing share of the state employees' health plan, which rapidly grew more expensive.
`THERE ARE CO-PAYS'
Sen. Mike Haridopolos, an Indialantic Republican who's slated to succeed Atwater, said the free insurance premiums make up for the part-time pay of legislators, who cut their salary this year to less than $30,000. His wife, a doctor who treats Medicaid patients, is also covered under his plan.
``It's not like we pay nothing. There are co-pays and deductibles,'' Haridopolos said. ``It's not like Medicaid.''
Newly appointed U.S. Sen. George LeMieux, who previously served as Crist's chief of staff and deputy attorney general, was among 39 Republicans who tried unsuccessfully to block debate on proposed healthcare reforms in Congress.
``We're going to have low quality healthcare for the masses,'' he lamented last week at Miami's Ryder Trauma Center.
Asked about his vote after years of receiving subsidized healthcare, LeMieux said, ``It's a fair point. The government should be more like the real world. But government employees get paid less, so you have to balance that out.''
Clean the sewer of these corrupt taxpayer-money sucking vermin.
This has always burned me. Why should the taxpayer have to support free health care to our elected officials, state or federal and to other government workers? This is not a perk. They should have to pay for their own just like the rest of us do.
“The governor plans to add his wife of nearly one year, wealthy businesswoman and philanthropist Carole Crist, as well as her two daughters from a previous marriage to his health plan on Jan. 1. The girls attend an all-girls private school in New York and live with their father, who owns a jet-rental company. “
Being a “public servant” as Crist so ridiculously calls it, does not mean you get to treat the government entity and taxpayers as corporations you get to fleece while thumping them in the nose saying “Why aren’t you grateful we are SERVING you?”
Thanks for the crapweaseal Miami Herald account with that heavy dose of anti-R. The real issue as not described in this POS article is why do all the Congress Criminals, their crappy aids, etc...get to avoid the Goobermint Health Care that they are trying to foist on the rest of us.
I can think of a lot of jobs that pay less than "government jobs." I think that decades ago that was true but not today.
I think all elected officials should pay their own insurance.
His buying the sugar company's Everglades holdings for several billion dollars was the icing on the cake for me.
Mario, are you listening? Change the state's 'health care' subsidy to zero and pledge to slash to ribbons the size of our state government.
Having a governor act like a fiscal conservative would be novel indeed.
Amazing how these jobs have caught up and are now the highest paying possible.
The Department of the Army is a prime example. At the base closest to DC there are 15,000 uniformed personnel and 45,000 civilians. This is patently ridiculous.
There isn't a job in the armed forces that can't be performed by uniformed military personnel!
At least Crist is doing the right thing by not adding any of his boyfriends.
IT’s always interesting to read what the tanked media has to say before either barfing on it, or wrapping the garbage.
Class warfare at its finest. Good job Havana Herald!!
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