Oreally said, "Look, the entire country needs to get serious about containing health care costs..."

I'm glad to see other people recognizing that healthcare is an issue that affects the entire country. The place to address it is not on an employer by employer, individual by individual, state program by state program basis. The answer is a national, single-payer system in which insurance companies (and their profits) are eliminated from the equation. Let school boards concern themselves with education, not healthcare coverage. Let businesses concern themselves with growing their businesses, not healthcare coverage. Let individuals concern themselves with building a better life for their families and themselves as opposed to living under the threat of bankruptcy due to the high costs of healthcare and uncovered catastrophic illnesses.

To all young people,

Teaching is not worth it. Unless you are devoted enough to the profession to all but volunteer, you should seek a career field in the private sector. Lord knows that the private sector could use some highly educated, professional types anyway. The benefits are disappearing from the teaching field and the pay is not being raised to compensate for that loss. It is not a profession for you if you want to have a family. I spoke just last week to a married couple, both teachers, and they told me with great sadness that after much thought and creative budgeting that they would not be having children becaue they simply can't afford it. Sure in the short term they could but they would have to sacrifice planning for retirement not to mention completely ignoring saving for the post high school education of their child/children. If you're single and plan on staying that way or coupled with someone and you both plan to never have kids, perhaps you'll be able to get by as a career teacher. Otherwise, I highly recommend figuring something else out. I know that if my advice is taken that the education of our children and, ultimately, this whole nation's future will suffer. Having worked in education and then left it, I can tell you the transation may be difficult, but the relief that comes with knowing that your entire career field isn't under attack by the government and the uninformed masses is a welcome feeling. If you can avoid having to go through that transition by choosing a different career path from the very start, I highly suggest that you do so.

Look, the entire country needs to get serious about containing health care costs, and this is a good place to begin. Whining and excuse making are not helpful. And turn off the fog machine, people, please.

Why should they get any surplus back. It is called insurance. I have health insurance but havent been to a doctor in years. Should I get my premiums back because I didn't use it. No When I do finally need it chances are I will draw out more than I paid in that given year.

true citizen - you are saying that teachers shouldn't get money back, that they pay in for health care, if they don't use as much as projected and the district should be able to just pocket it?? Why not have employers pay 100% then and keep those millions every year! What a joke.

Milton17...you are only bias of the act 10 decision and your numbers here do not reflect. Perhaps the surplus you speak of can help pay for all of the Milton ipads being used as per the other article on today's gazette page. Teachers will be just fine and they have had it really well off bennies and pay-wise. Very few exceptions. And the children will not be affected like the heart string pullers have tried to suggest, when act 10 finally wins through the liberal judge's attempts to block it.

The employees currently pay 4% of their health care and do not see any of the money that has resulted in surpluses throughout the years. If employees have to pay more, then they should see that same % given back to them since every year is resulting in a surplus from the health care; instead of lining their Fund 10 balance! Bet that will never happen!!

Its called,"What you don't know, won't hurt us. "

Agreed. The Board and the media continually "stir the pot" without explaining the details.

luv...good questions!

Here we go again. Will one of the Board members please explain what the Fund 10 balance is made of, why it goes high and low, and what the residual is actually comprised of? How high has the balance gone in the past few years? What is the lowest the balance has been over the past few years? Can you explain the concept of being self-insured, and needing a certain minimum estimated amount of cash reserves to cover a reasonably estimated amount of health related expenses? How many employees are actually covered by the self-funded health insurance plan? Also, please tell us how much money is deducted from an employee's paycheck for family health insurance coverage under the current plan, per month, and how much the new coverage is estimated to be, per month. The general public does not understand these concepts. Is there perhaps a web link you could provide so that we can gain a better understanding? Thank you.

There's big money in health insurance. The self-insured school district has a fund balance in the tens of millions of dollars thanks to the sale of health insurance (collecting more in premiums than benefits paid out). And now they want to raise the premiums?