Honestly, I have no clue how that is even possible. The annual cost of healthcare for one person per year should be between $6,000 and $9,000. California's state average is $9,500. Yet we have a plethora of "public servants" costing the state over $50,000 per year. Yet another example as to how taxpayer dollars are flat-out abused and wasted by elected officials and bureaucrats. These amounts are so absurdly high, it is hard to imagine how this could happen without rampant fraud.
This is from the OC Register:
One of the most generous health insurance plans enjoyed by a California public servant last year — costing $80,665 — went to a communications manager for the obscure Water Replenishment District of Southern California.
At the embattled Los Angeles Department of Water and Power — raided by the FBI in July, and yet to produce documents detailing how a worker earned $313,865 in overtime pay — there were 153 workers with health plans costing $57,816 each.
In Riverside County’s Rubidoux Community Services District, the general manager received health benefits totaling $55,717. In San Bernardino County’s Cucamonga Valley Water District, the general manager’s health benefits cost $38,191 to cover his family. In Anaheim, 31 workers — mostly in public safety — had health plans costing more than $36,000 each.
A new analysis of public spending on employee health insurance by Transparent California — whose findings were mirrored by the Southern California News Group’s own data crunching — found that workers toiling in California’s cities, counties, special districts and state offices received health benefits costing about 50 percent more than the average in California, which is $9,476.
And, surprisingly often, benefits cost two, three, four, up to even eight times as much.
“Spending over $50,000 on a single employee’s health insurance plan is an inexcusable waste of taxpayer funds,” said Robert Fellner, executive director of Transparent California, in a statement.
“Medical plans this expensive simply don’t exist in the broader market, which is a strong indication that providers are exploiting the fact that these governments are happy to pay inflated prices with other people’s money.”
California’s “wildly inflated health costs” bleed some $3.3 billion from taxpayers each year, Fellner calculated. ...
And a recent survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 92 percent of family medical plans cost less than $26,000....
Nationwide, workers contribute one-third of their health care premiums, according to UBA’s data. In California, government workers pay an average of 23.3 percent.
But the Water Replenishment District of Southern California — like many public agencies here — doesn’t ask workers to pay anything.
The district not only picks up 100 percent of premiums for workers and their dependents, but also gives them an “IRS qualified health reimbursement account” for out-of-pocket expenses of $8,196 per worker and $4,928 per dependent. Each year.The full story is definitely worth your time to read.
Unused funds roll over for three years, then revert to the district. ...
