Governor Branstad’s plan to remove health benefits from negotiations on state, county, city and school employee contracts presents more questions than answers.
The second: What would be the effects? Local decisions on health care coverage reflect local realities; the Governor has not shown why a statewide plan would (1) cover employees adequately; or (2) save a dime.
And perhaps the most important: We’ve seen this movie once in the last year with the Governor’s Medicaid privatization, and many would have preferred to walk out. So why would we go again?
We do have experience with that, in this Governor’s unilateral decision to privatize Medicaid, which has been both costly and disruptive thus far. This experience leaves a serious question whether the state should be rushing into another big change with health coverage that would affect as many as 1 in 7 workers in the state, with no more study than has been apparent.
Many public employers — school districts, etc. — like the ability to offer something that might not cost as much as a straight pay increase, and that is a benefits package that includes health insurance. Where employers and employees agree on such a package, why would the state object?
A responsible approach by legislators would keep all of these considerations in the forefront in discussing any such changes to employee benefits.
Posted by Mike Owen, Executive Director of the nonpartisan Iowa Policy Project.
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