Agenda - 08-30-2011 - 3 - Laserfiche WebLink

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14 -Employees' comments in the survey and at a recent Employee Relations Consortium meeting make it clear that retirement contributions and health insurance should be considered separately: Health insurance coverage addresses more immediate needs, while retirement contributions continue to grow over- time. Over a period of thirty= years, the total value of the County's $715- annual contribution to employees' supplementaa retirement accounts has the potential to more than double. Some comments, taken verbatim, from the survey are: • There needs to be a paan that doesn't punish those of us that are healthy and don't aver- use the benefits. The people that take-cane of themselves and only need annual chec~- ups covered or occassional prescriptions should- not be covering the costs of the smokers, obese, or other employees that are making active choices NOT to be healthy. It is_unfair to raise our premiums or co-pays. If there can be several plans to choose from then there can be a way for the healthy among us to qualify for better coverage. • The County just reinstated its contribution to employee retirement. In my view this benefit is always in jeopardy; the county can take it anytime it wants. In-that case, _it's ok to take it now and apply it to health insurance. This may be a short term solution and not ad-dress the long term cost to county for health insurance. For long term cost, my choice would be to put funds towards retirement. 2-Health insurance is a vital perk to employees esp as we age. In a news program on NPR August 16, many people will not have enough retirement to- apply to increasing health- costs. In that case, health care and retirement are a toss up decision. 3-I don't mind paying higher copays for prescriptions and office visits. • For myself I would "pay up" for the- better health insurance. But for staff at lower pay_ grades this may not be an option. This seems almost like a caste system where employees with lower skill sets are not entitled to the same level of care as their higher- skilled (and higher-paid) counterparts. • Any changes-would be a lost in pay and/or benefit. County employees have not received a pay increase in several years and none are foreseen. As all know, the cost of living continues to increase; this would be another increase cost to employees. • Reducing health- coverage is really not a good option -perhaps eliminating more positions is the way to go • As a single person, I along with many co-workers can absolutely not afford a reduction in net pay. However, it still seems unfair that those with dependents get a greater "benefit". I feel as though those of us with no dependents are being asked to sacrifice for those who do. A-12