Seattle Times: March 10, 2010
Diane Sosne, RN, President of SEIU Healthcare 1199NW
SCOTT Canaday may have to choose between the radiation-therapy
treatments he needs and paying his mortgage. If his health-care costs
keep increasing, "I will pay my mortgage and have to skip treatment,"
he says.
Like so many of us, Scott is having to make difficult choices because his health-care costs keep rising.
Does Scott work for a struggling small business? A local retail outlet?
A manufacturing company? No, Scott is a state employee, one of 110,000
public servants who go to work every day to provide us with health
care, teach our kids, fix our roads and bridges, maintain our parks and
keep our communities safe.
Sunday's Times article, "How state workers' pay really stacks up" shows
that state employee wages aren't out of line compared with the rest of
the job market. But the article left unchallenged the assertion that
Scott and his colleagues have "a Cadillac health-insurance benefit."
» Read the op-ed here