WHAS11.COM
February 2, 2004
Kentucky News
Raising health insurance on teachers, state employees caught Republicans off guard By Charles Wolfe / Associated Press
Gov. Ernie Fletcher’s proposal to make teachers and state employees pay more for health insurance took most of his fellow Republicans by surprise in the General Assembly.
Higher health insurance costs, coupled with a pay raise too modest to offset them, translates into an effective pay cut for tens of thousands of state employees and teachers.
It was a stunning disclosure. “They’ve lost their mind,” one Democratic legislator said in a stage whisper.
http://www.whas11.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D80ETIT80.html
Comment: Shifting health care costs to underpaid teachers and state employees is not a solution to the problem of ensuring affordable access and coverage for everyone. It only makes the problem even worse.
Since the majority agree that we now need a national solution, the process will be political. But we can no longer allow it to be destroyed by partisan division.
We agree that we need affordable, effective coverage for everyone. Let’s reject the rhetorical lie of “bipartisan cooperation” that permeates our political process today. Though the solutions must be political, destructive partisanship has to be set aside.
And if it happens that only one partisan faction will agree that the health care of the nation is more important than partisan ideology, then we may have to support that faction. But in that manner, politics would trump partisanship.
It’s our political system. Let’s take control.
Don
P.S., Please don’t throw the brickbats at me. Sling them toward the politicians who are failing to act on our national crisis in health care.