Tips for communicating with legislators about Dillon's scheme

Be sure to get inside the numbers on Speaker Dillon's faulty plan

Here are some messages to use in communicating with your legislators about Speaker Andy Dillon's health care scheme:

• Collective bargaining between employees and their employers has been working very well. With this proposed plan, local governments and school districts lose control of the ability to negotiate what’s best for their communities and schools in an ever-changing economic climate. The state can’t do it any better. There is no need for this attack on the bargaining rights of employees.

• Public employees have taken reductions in pay and benefits, just like every other taxpayer. They have done so to maintain quality health benefits. State-mandated financial reports show that the portion of school revenue that goes to employee compensation has been decreasing. 

• The savings alleged by the proponents of this big-government plan are based on fictitious numbers. Public school employees are already a part of large pools. Forcing them into an even larger state-run pool eventually becomes cost neutral.

• The state can’t balance its own budget. How can we expect it to run a multi-billion health care plan effectively? We can look to the fiasco with the Accident Fund and the unfunded liabilities with the retiree health plans as examples.

• To save the massive amount Speaker Dillon claims is possible, the state would have to gut health care coverage for employees or pass huge costs on to these Michigan taxpayers who serve the public good.

• This is a cost shift—not a cost savings. This is balancing the budget on the backs of public employees, ignoring the hundreds of millions they have already sacrificed to pay for health care. 

• Speaker Dillon’s plan is not the way to deal with the health care issue. We need national leadership from Washington to deal with a national issue—not a risky experiment in Lansing during disastrous economic times.

• Speaker Dillon’s plan shows disrespect for the people and organizations that make this state strong. Is his plan just political maneuvering?

Updated: August 4, 2009 11:47 AM