All New Jersey public school teachers may be offered cheaper health insurance plans under a deal that could save taxpayers hundreds of millions and cut costs for hundreds of thousands of teachers as well.
An agreement between two former adversaries, Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, and the state's largest teachers union, New Jersey Education Association, would offer two new healthcare plans expected to save local school districts $670 million a year for seven years, and save NJEA members $403 million a year.
More than 125,000 teachers are NJEA members, and New Jersey employed more than 116,000 full-time classroom teachers in the 2018-2019 school year, the latest data available.
Sweeney said he hopes to have the plans passed and offered to teachers under a special open enrollment period in July 2020. The two parties released few details about what the plans would look like when announcing the deal Monday.
New teachers and those that switch to a new plan called the "New Jersey Educators Health Plan," will have payroll deductions tied to a percentage of their salaries, as opposed to the current percentage of premium, created under the 2011 health benefits reform law known as Chapter 78. The change could save a public schoolteacher thousands of dollars, Sweeney said.
"It's no secret that our members have suffered a great deal under Chapter 78, which imposed unsustainable and ever-growing healthcare costs on them," said Marie Blistan, president of the NJEA. "With this creative, collaborative approach, that burden is greatly reduced, and our members no longer need to fear that their take-home pay will decrease year after year as a result of those imposed contributions."
Any changes would have to be approved by a majority of lawmakers in the Assembly and Senate, and signed by Gov. Phil Murphy.
“Gov. Murphy has long believed that good-faith negotiations with our workforce are the best strategy for reducing health care costs without sacrificing quality," said Alyana Alfaro, the governor's press secretary. "The Governor looks forward to reviewing the proposal put forward today and working together to finally give our educators the long-overdue Chapter 78 relief they deserve.”
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The Chapter 78 reforms passed under Sweeney and Republican Gov. Chris Christie have driven teachers out of the profession, NJEA says, by taking more out of teachers' paychecks every year. NJEA members pay between 3 percent and 35 percent of their premiums depending on their plan and salary.
A second plan, the "Garden State Health Plan" will offer NJEA members a network with New Jersey-only healthcare providers.
The savings will come from the way the plans are designed, and will still be the highest-level plan offered, or a platinum plan. In recent years, Sweeney has been pushing a package of bills called "Path of Progress" to find savings in government, with one of the bills offering public employees a gold-level insurance plan, or a step down from platinum. The status of these bills, which Sweeney has used to negotiate the budget with Gov. Phil Murphy, is unclear.
The NJEA had been one of Sweeney's fiercest rivals in recent years, spending millions of dollars to try to unseat him in 2017 and making the election one of the most expensive state races in the nation. This came after Sweeney reneged on a promise to push a constitutional amendment guaranteeing state payments into the public pension system, saying he feared voters would reject it.
"We're standing side by side and we're both smiling and we both have the same message that we are committed to provide quality and affordable healthcare to our members and also providing relief to the taxpayers in the state," Blistan said of Sweeney.
Sweeney said he and the teachers union have been negotiating for months, coming to an agreement Sunday night, and have not yet involved Murphy or Coughlin in the talks. Sweeney hopes to move the bill by March 26.
“While the Assembly will review this legislation as thoroughly as we review any other, I am confident that today marks yet another important step in my efforts to create long-term fiscal savings for New Jersey’s taxpayers," Coughlin said in a statement.
Exactly what the new plans will look like are unclear, and the bill is currently in the drafting phases. Sweeney said that two actuaries have reviewed the numbers, but did not release their analyses.
Ashley Balcerzak is a reporter in the New Jersey Statehouse. For unlimited access to her work covering New Jersey’s legislature and political power structure, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: balcerzaka@northjersey.com Twitter: @abalcerzak
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