A Health Care "I Told You So"
I normally do not post these sort of things, but there is some degree of satisfaction when you are proven right. And so this is bittersweet since the prediction was for the worse.
In June 1st edition of the Raleigh News & Observer, an article states the following:
"McCoy Faulkner collects $81 a day as a substitute teacher in the Wake County Public School System. A mere sub, he has no benefits.
"The 62-year-old former Raleigh police officer shells out $580 a month for an individual insurance policy, more than half his monthly pay. The full-time teachers for whom Faulkner fills in, however, are eligible for free health insurance, with no monthly premiums, through their employer.
"That’s why Faulkner was looking forward to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, figuring he was the kind of person that the health care reform law was designed to help. Under the new law, anyone who works 30 hours or more a week for a large business will be eligible for employer-sponsored health care.
"But instead of adding subs like Faulkner to its health care plan, the school system is looking for ways to avoid doing so. Wake is considering restricting its 3,300-plus substitutes to working less than 30 hours a week, effective July 1.
"The reason: If just a third of the system’s subs were to qualify for employer-sponsored insurance, it would cost Wake schools about $5.2 million, chief business officer David Neter said."The lesson is to think about the secondary consequences of a policy. To evaluate any policy, we always must ask, "What are the incentives that are faced by the decision makers?" Clearly this substitute teacher did not manage to think beyond "step one." And so now his position goes from bad to worse.
