NC state employees could see health premiums rise in 2026 (01-24-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepetekalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] I want to welcome back to the program, Artis Watkins, who is the executive director of the SEANC, which is the State Employees Association in North Carolina. Welcome back, Artis. How are you? I'm doing well. I hope you are. I'm doing well as well. So you've got the legislative session kicking off in Raleigh. And so I guess the first thing, what is the SEANC?

[00:00:56] What are you guys looking at for legislative priorities going into the session? Sure. And we pronounce it SEANC for whatever reason. Over the years, for whatever the reason, the group has pronounced it SEANC. And SEANC's goals are always to make sure pay health care benefits. The things that matter to every other working person out there are the things that matter to our members. Those are our legislative.

[00:01:25] I'm sorry? I said, so those are always going to be our legislative goals. Gotcha. And so what's the landscape look like going into this session regarding those goals? Well, I'll tell you, you know, it's going to be a difficult year for everyone.

[00:01:42] And part of that is obviously the tragedy we had with Helene is affecting, you know, not just all of our citizens out there and trying to make sure their lives get put back together to the best degree we can. But there's also a lot of revenue that's not going to come in from those counties that they lost because they lost everything. So that's going to have a lingering effect on the budget.

[00:02:09] But there are things that can be done, and that's what we're very focused on. And health care is where we think a lot of those things are. So the other day I saw WRAL had the report. I guess it came out of the State Board of Education. One of the members on the State Board of Education is the state treasurer, Brad Briner,

[00:02:31] who said that the state health plan, which is overseen by the treasurer's office, is looking at a half a billion dollar deficit. And that is even after there was money put into it by the General Assembly to help shore it up. But that's not going to be enough going forward. And his predecessor, Dale Falwell, talked about this as well.

[00:02:53] And so Briner has floated this idea, essentially a means test, right, that the more you make, then the more you would pay for your health benefits. Is that is that am I understanding that correctly? That's that's what I've understood from the article. And certainly, you know, treasurer Briner has been good enough to be in communication with us. And he seems like a nice man.

[00:03:20] But I will say this is this is kind of a usual what I would expect someone to do. Things are you know, there's a deficit that we need to fix. So we're going to go to working people to fix it and not go to secret contracts. Corporations have. And that's that's the situation with the health plan. That's what treasurer Falwell had tried to highlight. Right. With his clear pricing, his clear pricing initiative.

[00:03:48] Yeah. That got a lot of pushback from the hospital industry. So when you're when you're when you say secret contracts, you're talking about like the Blue Cross Blue Shield stuff that like Falwell couldn't get prices for various surgeries and treatments at various places around the state. Right. Right. So and again, I think treasurer Briner seems like a nice man. However, if he's not insisting to see what he's paying with taxpayer money.

[00:04:16] To health care providers, because that's being negotiated by an insurance company. But it's taxpayer money being spent. If he can't see where he's spending it. How in the world does he know he needs to jack up premiums on working people? Mm hmm. And so we've got a problem with that. This isn't a state employee issue. This is an American issue. You know, we talk about the swamp in D.C. And health care spending on federal lobbyists grew 70 percent over the last 20 years.

[00:04:46] And part of the what's been delivered is there is complete secrecy over most of this pricing. And as treasurer Falwell used to point out, we would never accept that if we went to the grocery store cash register having no idea what groceries were going to cost. So according to this article, though, it says that state workers who insure only themselves can pay as little as twenty five dollars a month for health care.

[00:05:12] Is that is how accurate is that a is that figure and who does that cover? Because 20 I think to a lot of listeners, they may hear twenty five dollars a month for your health insurance. That's really a great deal. So two things about that. Yeah. Number one, it's true. Number one. And the reason it historically was true, it used to be premium free for years and years.

[00:05:41] And the goal was because we pay so much less to state employees than they would make in the same job in the private sector. The way you kind of sold people on state government was pay is not great. You're never going to get rich, but your benefits will be decent. And over the years, that has diminished, diminished, diminished. But that's true for the state employee. What the state doesn't do is pay anything on the dependent coverage.

[00:06:08] So people's children, you know, are costing them sometimes seven hundred and eighty dollars a month. So if you're talking about someone in law enforcement, somebody teaching, somebody, you know, working on school buses, that might be one week's pay as a month to cover their dependent coverage. And that's that's not sustainable. But that's the reality we're in. North Carolina, for everybody in this state, we're ranked highest in the nation in terms of health care costs.

[00:06:36] But we're ranked third from worst in health care outcomes. We have a problem. Yeah. Look, I yeah, I agree with you. The health insurance system, the way it's set up in this state is it it it is not optimal, to say the least. Right. But so the reason the premium is relatively low is that there is nothing towards the dependent coverage and the salaries are so much lower than they would make in the private sector. So it's not a it's not a gift.

[00:07:05] It's a benefit of employment to try to get people. And we are in a staffing vacancy crisis right now. Well, look, I yeah, I've said the same that you just laid out that that has always been sort of the deal that if you go to work in the public sector, the pay is not as high as the private sector. But you get the better benefits. You get the pension. You get an earlier retirement and it's secure.

[00:07:27] I can tell you just from a personal experience, like I the pension program, when I first started working for a company, Jefferson Pilot, they no longer exist. Neither does the pension. Right. So that like that that went away. The private sector pensions, they're all gone. And you don't get those nowadays. And health insurance for just me is about what you what what the dependent coverage would be under that seven hundred eighty dollars a month. That's what I'm paying just for me. So. Right.

[00:07:56] And I don't make a ton more than like than an average state employee. So when I hear your company, but your company probably doesn't have 10 percent of the market. Of health care. Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. No. And I'm not saying that the that the that the public sector should get that same high rate. I'm not saying that at all. I definitely agree that there should be a trade off if the pay is generally lower.

[00:08:20] That's why. So I'm asking about the means test as a general concept, because you and I both know there are people that work in state government that get paid a lot of money. Right. At the upper end. And so should they not be paying more than twenty five dollars a month if it's just them? Here's here's my response to that. Yeah. We only know again, these are secret contracts. The only thing we do know is the range of what people get paid.

[00:08:44] Some hospitals are making eight hundred percent plus reimbursement compared to Medicare. Some are making as low as 90 percent. Mm hmm. So why are we not worried that we're paying some eight hundred percent and some 90 percent? We're worried about a state employee. No, I can be worried about both. Yeah, I don't see it as a choice. I can be worried about both because a lot of times we're not right now. We're not worried about both. Oh, I agree. Looking into these. Yeah, I agree.

[00:09:13] That's why I was I was a backer of Falwell's clear pricing plan. I picked my own doctors based on the fact that they were on board with that with that plan, too. I want all of that as well. But I see that as, yes, related, but I don't have to pick one or the other issue. Yeah. So the concept. Yeah. But but but see the the political game is to to get us to say, yeah, that makes sense. It nothing makes sense right now.

[00:09:38] Increasing anything for anyone does not make sense until you put all the facts on the table. And I know the state auditor was on your show not long ago talking about, hey, we need to know what we're paying. Yeah. You have to look at these state contracts. And I thought, well, good. And I really hope not only that he looks at these contracts, but that the public that we can get the law changed where the public can, because it is my sincere belief.

[00:10:05] You don't have to jack up prices on anybody if you get that under control. Yeah. Well, look, and on that, I agree, because the private sector payers have been getting it jacked up every single year because we can't we don't know the prices either, because all of the subsidization that's occurring, a lot of it is occurring in the private sector. They're they're they're juicing us to pay for expansion of various programs. So, look, I'm with you on that. Yeah, I'm with you on that.

[00:10:32] But Artis Watkins, I do appreciate your time today. You're welcome back anytime. Artis Watkins is the executive director of Scenic, the State Employees Association in North Carolina. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you, Pete. All right. Take care. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina? Just a quick drive up the mountain. And Cabins of Asheville is your connection.

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[00:11:48] And they have pet-friendly accommodations. Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Let us, ham and tomato, go to the phones. Here is Chris. Welcome to the program. Hello, Chris. Hello, Skinny Pete. What's up, buddy? Hey, man. Oh, you know, it's Friday. That's half the battle. Amen, sir. It's been a great week. Been really enjoying the Spotify podcast version of your show.

[00:12:18] Oh, I hate to blow that up for the radio people, but man, it's a real clean, nice way to listen to you. Well, thank you. When you miss a show. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. We do a lot. John Moore does a lot of work to edit that stuff down and just give you the best of me, which is basically the whole show. Minus commercials. Oh, it's great. It's great. It's great stuff. I'm a fan. So, dude, I am beside myself with health coverage this year.

[00:12:41] My wife and I have finally decided they were going to go up on us another 30% between my wife and I. We're both fairly healthy people. I don't have any of these prescriptions that cost, like, godly amounts every month or any of these, like, known illnesses. And between the two of us, our plan was $1,000 a month with a $15,000 deductible.

[00:13:03] So we're spending $25,000, $30,000 a year for insurance before we're actually getting insurance. And what we've decided to do... I'm sorry, what was your deductible? $15,000. And that's for both of you combined. So you're responsible for the first $15,000? And $1,000 a month payment. Right. And that was CVS Aetna. Yeah. That was the plan provider.

[00:13:32] So we're just, like, beside ourselves going, what are we going to do? Like, why don't we just send that much money to our doctor and dentist every month? And we'll just get this big, giant pile of cash built up. And then at the end of the year, what we do, we can get back what we don't use. And we've talked to our agent. And because this isn't insurance anymore. I mean, you keep calling it insurance. It's not. It's pre-existing conditions don't matter. So you can get into your accident and then go get insurance afterwards.

[00:14:01] And that's exactly how the system's set up. They have an emergency plan that they can get enacted within either 12 or 20 hours or something. So we're going to roll the dice and hope that, you know, we don't get a leg cut off or something crazy that the first initial surgery had to be done right away. And it cost a ton of money. But we can just get up on a plan. As soon as one of us gets diagnosed with our cancer or, you know, whatever illness, then, okay, looks like we need to go get insurance now. So that's how we're going to be doing this pushing forward.

[00:14:30] I would love to have somebody that works. If I'm paying all these people salaries to go and lobby for better insurance for state employee government. And it's like, where's the lobbyists for the individuals that are just like me who have been self-employed their entire life? Never got a payday off. Never got a paid doctor visit. All these benefits. And I'm tired of being told that the government sector is getting less salary than the private. It's just not true anymore. I mean, you have to go down to the most lowest level jobs to even find any truth to that.

[00:15:00] We just fired the county manager here in North Carolina, Concord. And he was at $500,000 a year with $500,000 severance packages and bonuses of $30,000. And, I mean, the list just goes on and on and on. And they get all of these paydays off and severance, bereavement, two weeks, payday, personal holiday, your birthday. Just pick a day. It's Chris Cranston holiday. You know, it's just I can't take it anymore. I need somebody to fight for me.

[00:15:27] Those are supposed to be the elected representatives, right? That's who is supposed to be our voice. And so what people need to do is to outline that case that you just made to the elected representatives yourself. And I know that's difficult. It takes time. You've got to volunteer to do the work. You're not going to get paid for it. I get it. I know.

[00:16:23] I'm a state employee. I'm on the state health plan. I'm single. And I have no kids, no dependents. And I am making half a million dollars a year. Why I'm only paying $25 a month for my health insurance? That, to me, is a different question than the state health plan. But, Chris, I appreciate the call, buddy. Thank you. Thank you, sir. All right, man. Take it easy. All right, I hope you had a happy holiday season. But tell me if something like this happened at your house. Your family and friends are gathered around. Maybe y'all are in the living room.

[00:16:52] You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing. And then somebody says, hey, Dad, remember those old VHS tapes? Did you ever get them transferred? And then the room gets all quiet. All eyes are on Dad who says, oh, you know, well, I've been meaning to, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Look, don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for another year. All right, Create A Video has been helping families in the Charlotte area preserve their history since 1997.

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[00:17:49] Got a couple of emails here regarding the topic we were covering with the executive director of the State Employees Association of North Carolina, which is basically the union, but don't call it a union because we don't have unions. We don't have collective bargaining rights in North Carolina. But there are unions, okay?

[00:18:11] So she was talking about how there's this proposal, and up first let me start it with the write-up here, WRAL. Brad Briner, who is the new state treasurer, took over after Dale Falwell ran for governor, lost in the primary. So Dale is no longer there. Brad Briner has taken over.

[00:18:33] And he told the State Board of Education last week that there is a half-a-billion-dollar deficit in the state health plan. And one of the things that he has proposed, but he says in this article that he said it's a, you know, the issue is very important, and he wants suggestions on what to do. Right? So that's the point of raising this issue.

[00:19:01] He says it's not imperative for 25, but looking forward to 2026, this is something that's got to be addressed. So what are people's ideas on how to address it? And Artis Watkins, you know, pointed out that you've got these, you've got the health industry, the healthcare industry, that negotiates basically with the hospitals, right, through this insurance middleman.

[00:19:28] The state is hiring the middleman, but the middleman won't tell the state what the prices are. And the state can't get the prices from the healthcare industry either. So that's why Dale Falwell was like, you would not buy your service if you don't know what the price is. And so I want to know what the prices are. And they were like, no. And then he did a Freedom of Information Act request, got that information from, finally got it from him, from the industry, and it was all redacted. They blacked out, like, all of the pages of their prices.

[00:19:58] They refuse to tell people what they are charging for these various procedures. You could get, I remember Dale saying, like, if you go and get a knee replacement and you get it done in Charlotte versus Asheville versus Wilmington versus Raleigh, it's going to cost different no matter where you go. And there's no rationale for it. And the prices are wildly different. So why are they charging the prices that they're charging?

[00:20:28] And what are those prices? We don't know. I agree with all of that effort. It is corrupt, okay? It is completely corrupt. The fact that I, as a client, don't know what I'm paying for is corrupt. This became very clear to me long before Obamacare came in and threw all the markets out of whack, and that's what we're still dealing with.

[00:20:53] Thanks again, John McCain, keeping this leviathan in place, entrenched. Right? The system has been corrupted and broken, and it has been, that has been done on purpose. The point is to break it. The point is to break it, because if you break it, then you can offer, quote, the solution.

[00:21:16] And the solution, much like the Aztec analogy I gave the other day, where, you know, you sacrifice 25 babies to make it rain, and it doesn't rain, and rather than saying, hey, maybe we shouldn't be sacrificing babies because it's not related. No, no. They say, let's sacrifice more babies. We didn't do enough, right? That's the solution that will be offered. More government, more of the things that are breaking the system and creating this middleman between you and your doctor.

[00:21:43] And I became aware of this when I first got my very first HSA, when we were allowed to finally have an HSA. I got one. I go into the doctor's office, and the first experience was about a tetanus shot. And he offered, he said, you want to get a tetanus shot? And I said, well, how much is it? And he said, I don't know. Like, that's a problem. That is a huge problem. You're selling me something, and you don't even know what the price is. Well, your insurance will cover it.

[00:22:12] I said, well, I have an HSA, so I'm paying for it. So I want to know what the price is. And when he came back and told me, and this was 20 years ago, he comes back and says the price is like almost $80. And he's like, yeah, just wait until you step on a rusty nail or something. It's not required. But when something is, quote, free, then people will do it. So was that tetanus shot actually worth $80? Or is that just something that the doctors throw out there? They don't know the price of it.

[00:22:41] They ask you if you want it. You say, sure, I'll get it just to be safe. Can't be too safe, of course. And then the insurance company and the provider, they hammer out whatever money needs to be paid for that. And they're charging the insurance company $80. And the insurance company will say, oh, no, we're not paying that. We'll only pay you $70. Okay, fine. And the shot's only like $10. That is not clear pricing.

[00:23:06] But again, that is a separate issue than the health plan and what employees are being charged. The health plan. If you are a worker right now and you don't have any dependents, you could be paying $25 a month. That's a great deal. And this is one of the things that I just caution people who work for the state or are on the state health plan or advocates for it. You have to understand who you're talking to.

[00:23:33] That if you're talking to people in the private sector, a $25 a month health insurance premium is like a freaking unicorn. They have never had that. We have never had it, never seen it. Wouldn't know what to do with all that extra money every single month. Right? So that's all I'm saying is please be aware that that is a really great deal.

[00:24:00] And if you are making a quarter of a million dollars working for the state, you getting a $25 health insurance premium is a kind of bitter pill to swallow as the one who's paying for that. Because I am. Right? There are taxpayers and tax consumers. People who work for government in the public sector, that is a consumption of the tax dollar. The people who are in the private sector are the creators of it. I'm not saying I'm not denigrating anybody for it.

[00:24:30] I am a believer in the need for these services and people to perform them. But when I'm the one that's paying into the system, paying the money that's then getting deducted out of the paycheck, you know, for the health, the state health plan, like I'm the one paying that. You're taking the money home. What's left over after the premiums. But I'm the one paying it. The private sector is the one paying that. So just keep that in mind when making these arguments. It may be more successful. All right.

[00:24:58] If you're listening to this show, you know, I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too. And you've probably heard me say, get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place. So you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check.ground.news slash Pete.

[00:25:26] I put the link in the podcast description, too. I started using Ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check.ground.news slash Pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get 15% off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature.

[00:25:55] Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports Ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. President Donald Trump is in Swannanoa, which is a town just outside of Asheville, right off of I-40. When you're going up from Charlotte, you'll pass it on the on the right, basically past Old Fort. And so it's going on now live.

[00:26:21] He's got some people that were victims of the flooding from Swannanoa. And it looks like he's engaging in like a Q&A with them at a microphone. I do have a feed of this, but we've missed Trump's actual opening comments.

[00:26:41] And so what I think I'm going to do is in the next hour, I think I'm going to go back to the C-SPAN feed and I'm just going to start it from the beginning so we can hear Trump's comments from the beginning. I believe he is now because at the beginning, I believe he said something on the order of looking to. To. To overhaul or scrap FEMA in some way, so we'll get to that in the next hour.

[00:27:09] Let me get to the emails that I said I would read and then I didn't, because apparently I am a liar. I will know. See, I'm reading them now, so I wasn't lying. This is from Tim. Tim says, I'm sick and tired of public sector employees whining about having to pay for their families portion of so-called health insurance. Quote unquote. Join the rest of the real world and you will see exactly what things really cost.

[00:27:36] Like my family of two has a, you know, quote, insurance policy. And that policy costs $22,000 a year with a $9,000 deductible. But you mostly won't. Because you, the public sector, are just spoiled bread. Bring on the blowback. OK, so. All right, Tim. Look, this is like anything else. Nobody wants their costs to go up on anything. On anything.

[00:28:06] Rent. Groceries. Right. This is health insurance. Auto insurance. Home insurance. Nobody wants their costs to go up. But this is something that has been occurring in the private sector for my entire life. And, you know, you can trace it back to government policies and spending and inflation. Right. There are a lot of different factors involved here.

[00:28:32] You know, the intervention of the government into the medical marketplace. And then you've got the, you know, monopolistic health providers, health care providers that enjoy these, you know, privileged positions. Protected by the government. It's a cartel. And no better example of it is than North Carolina's own certificate of need program. Right.

[00:29:00] Where the government decides based on basically existing health care lobbyist pressure as to whether or not another facility can open near some population center. And so the government has to write up a certificate of need because the government's going to decide whether there's a need for this or not. Get the hell out of the way.

[00:29:21] If a health company wants to open up an MRI center someplace or a colonoscopy center and they go out of business because there wasn't enough demand in that area, then let them go out of business. It's their decision to do it. But they shouldn't have to go to the government and then the government say, we think there's enough of a demand here after we've held public hearings and randos show up to say, I don't think we need colonoscopies here. Well, what the hell do you know? You don't know anything.

[00:29:50] You're not an expert. You haven't done any kind of market research. Please. It's all just covered to stifle competition. It needs to go. That's one element of this. The other element is the pricing secrecy that these health insurance companies and the health care providers, they will not give the pricing on this stuff. And then they argue back and forth. I went over all of this already, so I won't revisit it.

[00:30:20] But let me go over here to Philip, who says, happy Friday. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. That's about the that's about the Trump visit. I'll read that next hour. Matthew says, Charlotte did away with all health care. For anybody who retires from employment as of 2009, that's your police, fire, water department and so on. Recently, the state did away with their health care for their retirees.

[00:30:49] There is health care. It's Medicare, like everybody else. So once again, that's the pension that you're talking about. It's essentially a pension. It's not like payment for salary. But you have this health insurance that lasts through your entire retirement. But Medicare is already there. Medicare is people are forced into the Medicare system when they turn 55. And so I don't know.

[00:31:17] Shouldn't I give you that. That makes sense that everybody goes into Medicare. We're all in the same boat now. Troopers, teachers and so on. That's why the state and city are in an employment crisis. No money, no benefits at the end. Why not work for the private sector at this point? That's a good question. Why not work for the private sector? All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here.

[00:31:47] You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to thepeatcalendorshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening. And don't break anything while I'm gone.