State Health Insurance Not Target

Some workers could face as many as 24 unpaid furlough days during the next two years. All workers likely will receive no cost-of-living adjustment, and could have a scheduled pay increase revoked.

But there’s one place the governor won’t go, one cut he won’t propose: He won’t ask state workers to contribute to their health insurance.

It’s not up for negotiation, as far as Kulongoski is concerned.

“He’s already asking public employees to do a lot more with less,” the governor’s spokeswoman Anna Richter Taylor said. “He’s not willing to take that next step. There’s only so much you can ask people to sacrifice.”

Oregon state workers enjoy some of the best health benefits of any public workers in the nation. They pay no premium for their insurance. Full-time employees pay no deductible.

It’s a benefit they’ve earned through years of sacrifice and negotiation, union officials say. During the years, state workers have agreed to small wage increases or no increases at all to protect their health benefits.

“We put our families and our health ahead of the disposable income in our paychecks, year after year,” said Ed Hershey, the spokesman for Service Employees International Union Local 503. “The last thing that anyone should be doing now as we begin to expand health care is to take it away from people who have it.”

Health insurance for state workers takes a big bite out of the state budget, about $1.3 billion out of the projected $14.8 billion budget for 2009-2011, according to the Public Employees’ Benefit Board.

The state has budgeted about $12,800 per employee on average to pay for health benefits this year, said PEBB spokeswoman Ingrid Norberg.

Republicans argue that it’s a prime place to institute budget cuts.

“Paying for 100 percent of the health care costs of state employees is not a sustainable path,” said Rep. Ron Maurer, R-Grants Pass. “We need to change it.”

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