#ncga: Bill puts legislator’s hometown’s employees into state health plan
Senator Bill Rabon (R) — who, by the way, thinks we need to pay more gas tax — has filed a bill seeking to put employees of The Town of Southport onto the state health plan normally reserved for teachers and other full-blown state employees. Southport is in Brunswick County — where Rabon also happens to be from.
What’s so unusual about that? If passed, Southport would become ONLY the fourth such locality in North Carolina to dump its employees onto the state health plan. The three others are: Montgomery County, Elizabethtown in Bladen County, and Matthews in Mecklenburg County. Why those three localities got such special treatment is news to me. (Though, Matthews was the hometown of disgraced former House speaker Jim Black.)
In 2009, it was reported that the state health plan LOST $80 million. In 2011, it was reported that the health plan faced a $30 BILLION unfunded liability and was at risk of bankruptcy. There was talk at the time of just dumping the plan’s customers into ObamaCare.
And here we are adding MORE people to the state health plan. Why can’t these four localities do what all of the other local governments are doing? Why aren’t we out exploring options that include the private sector — where we might end up saving the taxpayers money? That’s the kind of thing you’d expect from a conservative revolution.
Isn’t Matthews also the home town of the equally disgraced (or at least disgraceful) Thom Tillis?
Thillis hails from Cornelius near LKN.
Got it, thanks. One time I thought I saw him listed as R- Matthews, hence my confusion.
If it is determined that having local government employees participate in the state health plan is something that should be done (I suspect it isn’t), then all local governments should be eligible. Giving this as a selective perk to a few is repulsive and smacks of something that the old Democrat power brokers would have done. Hopefully, there are enough real Republicans up there to kill this bill.
It appears that the current NC legislature has already been in session too long. What is it about State Houses and Capitol Hill that turn people into aspiring tyrants?
This is nothing unusual … many municipalities in North Carolina are participants in the state employee health plan. Whenever a town requests it, legislation is required to bring that town into the system, but it’s something that happens without controversy and something that happens often.
Addendum … in the cases where towns’ employees are added to the state health plan, the municipalities pay the FULL costs involved … It doesn’t cost the state a penny.
“Many?” The statute that Rabon’s bill amends mentions a total of THREE localities that have joined the state health plan. THREE cannot honestly be called “Many” — especially when there are 100 counties and thousands of municipalities in the state.
And IF the cities are paying the full bill, WHAT is the point of joining the state plan? Is it more cost-effective, with better coverage, than anything out there in the private marketplace? If so, why not let the rest of us in?
It’ll be interesting to see what comes of that, and what kind of possible reasoning he could offer as to why that’s a good idea…
On it’s face, it seems pretty straight-up dishonest cronyism – a contemptibly inappropriate try at abusing his position.
He needs a really, really good reason I can’t think of, or his GOP leadership cohorts should laugh him straight out of the building for writing that nonsense down.
Maybe a more ambitious state lawmaker should submit a bill to remove those existing special exceptions instead 🙂 (It would get my attention, anyways) 🙂 Or, as Raphael points out, it should be opened up for them all, in every municipality.