-By Warner Todd Huston
If you want to see the logical disconnect of unions and their lap dog lawmakers where it concerns costs to government, one need look no further than the over indulgent healthcare plan that New Hampshire’s state workers have been lavished with.
On July 4, the Boston Globe published a story that details the incredibly rich healthcare plan that state workers have succeeded in getting due to union negotiations with pliant Democrat lawmakers. It seems that they get just about any kind of care they want and all for “free.” It’s called a “Cadillac” healthcare plan and it is amazing for its coverage.
According to the Globe, surgery is free for New Hampshire state workers. So are MRIs, CT scans and X-Rays. It gets even more indulgent.
Pregnant women pay nothing for prenatal care; alcoholics aren’t billed for short stints in rehab. Seeing a therapist costs just $10, as many as 20 visits a year, and prescription drugs top out at $30 for a three-month mail-order supply. New Hampshire state employees get $450 annually toward gym memberships, if they go regularly, or $200 toward their own treadmill – and there’s a $150 annual reimbursement for yoga classes, diabetes clinics, and nutritional counseling.
All this for a $60 a month employee premium! For $60 state employees get $20,400 worth of medical coverage a year. Outside the $720 a year the employees pay, why it’s all free, right?
Now, do New Hampshire union reps think this is overindulgent, highly costly to state budgets, and unearned? Of course not. In fact, they think we ALL should get such expansive coverage.
But Diana Lacey, the chair of collective bargaining for the New Hampshire state employees’ union, says it’s wrong to call their plan “Cadillac’’ coverage, or to encourage employers to offer workers skimpy coverage. A health overhaul, she said, should “bring people up to the standard we have – healthcare that is responsible and affordable and you don’t have to go bankrupt to get the treatment you need.’’
You see, it’s free, ya know? State workers don’t have to pay for it… so it must be free! Right?
Except that you and I both know that nothing is free. So, who really pays for this unearned, over indulgent healthcare plan wrought by union thugs from pliant state Democrats? Who else but the taxpayers of New Hampshire, most of whom have nowhere near the coverage that their own state workers get.
This is the mentality that unions and Democrats are taking into this healthcare battle. Healthcare is a “right,” they insist. It should be “free,” they say. And this is why negotiating with them is impossible. They aren’t in touch with reality in any way. Their every premise is so wrong headed that any step we make in their direction is a step toward madness.
Call your federal representatives and tell them you want government out of healthcare, not even further into it.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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