Unions are not paying their fair share

Today New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed legislation requiring state workers to contribute more to their health and retirement benefits to help meet budget shortfalls. New Jersey has more than a half-million, mostly union employees, whose pension system is facing an estimated $110 billion budget shortfall according to Fox New York.

Angry union members have been protesting the proposed changes but one must stop to ask why? Union boss and frequent White House visitor Richard Trumka is fond of saying that the rich don’t pay their fair share in this country.

Evidently Mr. Trumka is a casualty of our education system because if he followed the news, he’d know that government workers, on average, now earn more than twice their private sector counterparts. According to mygovcost.org government workers earn $123,000 annually compared to private sector employees who average only $52,000 per year.

I work in an endodontist office. There are 12 of us. We participated with the UWF, United Welfare Fund, aka, United Services Workers. They paid sh!t. For one root canal to make ends meet, we would have to see 3 UWF's patients. And of course, they were the ones who demanded the "elite" times....nights and Saturdays, because they would not take off work (for an emergency in which they were in "excruciating pain"). And these are the people we would block off time to do a 1 visit (if the tooth permitted) and they would "no show" or cancel at the last minute (which is what happens when you pay NOTHING out of pocket).

UWF went "under". Apparently these union "businesses" were not paying their dues; therefore, UWF could not pay out it's fees.

They switched to Healthplex, which is an absolute ABOMINATION. They pay even less than UWF and have some sort of scheme going on.

From this experience, in my little world, the unions are collapsing. The boss originally decided to sign up with these schemers; however, we are now dropping them.

From my little inside view (there are companies involved in litigation, however, I can't say who), but it seems the United Service Workers can't even get their own "peeps" to pay up.

I have to admit up front that I know little about how insurance companies reimburse providers. Be assured, I agree with what you are saying. Unionized workers think they are entitled to a lifelong guarantee that they will never have to spend one penny of their own money for any kind of medical treatment - medical, dental, vision, hearing, etc.

Why does a doctor choose to see the patients of an insurance company that pays so little? Can the doctor not require the patient to pay the balance, or part of it?

is what happens when you pay NOTHING out of pocket

That is soooo true of every give-away program - Medicaid, Food Stamps, welfare, etc.

"Why does a doctor choose to see the patients of an insurance company that pays so little? Can the doctor not require the patient to pay the balance, or part of it?"

Because of the referrals. We are a referral based root canal specialty office. Yes, we also get a lot of patients who will only use our office because of the 2 great doctors we have and because of us staff.

Unfortunately, when you sign up with any insurance, we participate with a few PPO's as well, you agree to their fees and must abide by them.

UWF had no out of pocket expense for the patient, unless they hit their max for the year. This DDS happened to be our 2nd biggest referral; however, it already looks like he was bumped to 3rd. I run the numbers every quarter for the top 50 DDS's. Net prod, net coll., how many root canals started and completed and the average per rct.

We also have a lot of private pay patients as well. We are expensive, but our overhead is tremendous and the boss has worked his fingers to the bone to get his practice to what it is today.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.