Reader thinks teachers are selfish

Gov. Christie suggests that teachers should be required to pay 1.5 percent of their “base” pay toward their own health insurance premiums. Since teachers now pay nothing, I guess one could say that this is an improvement. But, there are problems with this plan. The average NJ teacher would pay $855 of a premium that is likely over $15,000. We taxpayers will pay the rest. Nevertheless, you can bet that the teachers and their militant union will still cry bloody murder! The real underlying problem is that no one in the private sector pays a “percentage of our salary” toward insurance. We pay a percentage of the insurance premium. That makes a big difference in how we feel about the kind of insurance we get. If we are paying 50 percent of the premiums ourselves, you can be darn sure that we are going to ask our employer to eliminate costs any way possible. We will ask them to get a cheaper policy without all the bells and whistles. In other words, we don’t want to be paying half the costs of a “Cadillac” policy. Compare that to the proposed plan for the teachers. If a teacher is going to pay $855 and it has no relation to the policy they get, they obviously will demand the biggest, best, and costliest plan available just as they selfishly do now under the current system where they pay zilch. We must tell the teachers that the gravy train is over and that they will now, finally, be required to cough up 50 percent of their own insurance premiums. Then let’s see how fast they trip all over themselves trying to find more “affordable” insurance. Michael Garrett Shale Hills Farm Wantage