Conservatively Speaking
State Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) represents parts of four counties: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, and Walworth. Her Senate District 28 includes New Berlin, Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Muskego, Waterford, Big Bend and parts of Greenfield, East Troy, and Mukwonago. Senator Lazich has been in the Legislature for more than a decade. She considers herself a tireless crusader for lower taxes, reduced spending and smaller government.
Teachers are treated differently in proposed government health care plan
By Mary Lazich
Friday, Jul 27 2007, 10:20 AM
Apparently stung by criticism that I first raised about teachers being exempt from the Senate Democrats’ government health plan, its supporters are trying to a place a positive spin on this boondoggle.
The Wisconsin Health Project has issued a press release stating:
“Public school teachers are not exempt from the plan. Teachers are treated like everyone else--they are covered by the plan, they pay the same assessments, their employers pay the same assessments.
Like all other unionized employees--public and private—there may be a temporary delay in joining Healthy Wisconsin (the government health care plan) if they have a collective bargaining agreement in effect on the day the plan commences.”
That is a significant stipulation. In their own words, the Wisconsin Healthy Project admits teachers are being treated differently from everyone else the minute the government health plan goes into effect.
Shortly after the Senate Democrats dropped their $15.2 billion bomb on taxpayers, I asked the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau (LFB) to prepare an analysis of the government health care plan. The LFB writes this about teachers, with the key phrase in bold:
Municipal Employment Relations Law. Provide that the definition of economic issue would include "health insurance coverage of benefits not provided under the Healthy Wisconsin Plan."
Under current law, the definition includes the term "health insurance." Further, provide that, for the purpose of determining if a school district employer has maintained current fringe benefits requirements under current qualified economic offer (QEO) law, the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission (WERC) would be required to consider the employer to have maintained its health care coverage benefit if the employer provides health care coverage to its school district professional employees through the Healthy Wisconsin Plan and supplements that coverage, if necessary, to produce a health care coverage benefit that is actuarially equivalent to the health care coverage benefit in place before the school district professional employees become covered under the Healthy Wisconsin Plan.
Provide that, if a dispute arises concerning the employer’s determination of actuarial equivalence or what supplemental benefits are sufficient to achieve actuarial equivalence, the dispute must be resolved by a neutral person who is designated by WERC.
To be clear, unlike the rest of us who lose our current health care plans the day the Senate Democrats’ plan is enacted, teachers are guaranteed to keep their current coverage as long as the QEO remains in effect. Everyone else must take the plan dictated by the government health authority.
The Senate Democrats’ plan unfairly singles out one group to obtain better access and more coverage than the rest of Wisconsin. Despite the claims of the Wisconsin Health Project, teachers are being treated differently than everyone else. Supporters of the government health plan continue to be disingenuous about its details, a very good reason to be skeptical of the entire proposal.
