I am glad David called attention to the progress that was made on the city's health care costs WITH the union.....We had a serious problem of rapidly escalating health care costs, we talked to the unions and they came to the table with a lot of creativity. Health care costs are going to be an ongoing issue but in today's climate it's important to say that in our case government and unions four a way to work together to save money and jobs.
R.T. Rybak -----Original Message----- From: David Brauer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 08, 2004 7:50 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Mpls] A health deal that worked for both sides;other SW Journal/Skyway News stories Not wanting Joe Soucheray to cherry-pick topics for the list, I thought I'd pass along some OTHER stories from last Thursday's SW Journal and today's Skyway News: The one I think might be most interesting for list members is on the city's recent health-care deal with its employees. Employees opted for a high-deductible, lower-premium plan, and the city kicked in a substantial part of its premium savings back to employees, setting up individual accounts to pay off the deductible. In the end, the deal saved $8.8 million compared to what status-quo 2004 premiums would have been. The city actually spent less in '04 for premiums than in '03, and workers come out ahead, too. A harbinger for many of us? The story is at: http://www.skywaynews.net/articles/2004/03/08/news/news03.txt REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
