Latest / The SEANC View / President Montgomery speaks out against increased State Health Plan premiums

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President Montgomery speaks out against increased State Health Plan premiums · The SEANC View

• 0:00
  Music.
• 0:09
  Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
• 0:12
  This is Jonathan Owens, your communications director.
• 0:15
  I'm here with Artis Watkins, the executive director, and Suzanne Beasley,
• 0:19
  the government relations director. How are you gals doing today? I'm here, too.
• 0:24
  Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh, she's speaking up now. There you go.
• 0:27
  I know she has to speak up. Wait a minute, Sam.
• 0:29
  You said, like, at least three feet away, so I kind of forget you. I'm sorry.
• 0:33
  I try to spread the mics out so that we're not picking up as much echo.
• 0:37
  So yeah, that's a good, good idea with also is Sam Klein, digital communications
• 0:43
  specialist slash podcast producer. Welcome Sam.
• 0:48
  So we're, uh, we just wanted to get back to a little regular schedule here this week.
• 0:53
  We had some things go on down at the legislature. We'll get to in a second.
• 0:58
  Let's get a little bit of an election update though.
• 1:01
  We've had a little movement since the last podcast on a few races,
• 1:05
  most notably in our last podcast, Mark Dierman had spoken about Terrence Everett losing his race.
• 1:12
  He wound up winning that race. And that is a Senate seat, correct?
• 1:16
  That's a Senate seat. Former Representative Terrence Everett ran for the Senate.
• 1:20
  And the counting continues, but that one shook out pretty good for Scenic.
• 1:25
  He was one of our impact endorsed candidates and a friend to Scenic for a long time.
• 1:30
  So that doesn't change the super majority in the Senate though, right? still.
• 1:34
  And the, was it the Supreme Court seat?
• 1:38
  Allison Riggs pulled ahead in that race. I guess they're still counting a lot
• 1:41
  of provisional ballots.
• 1:43
  My understanding is there's a couple counties still not in. She's up by 625 votes.
• 1:48
  But Jefferson Griffin, who was her opponent in that race, apparently this morning
• 1:53
  has called for a recount.
• 1:54
  So that's going to make it take a little longer to get this to shake out. But it was bizarre.
• 2:00
  That was, as you count provisionals, Terrence's race, and then that race,
• 2:04
  really, you just saw him turn on a dime in some counties.
• 2:08
  It's always wild that people, I mean, you know, you do want the election night
• 2:12
  results to be correct and know on election night who wins, but it's also very
• 2:17
  important to count all the ballots, right?
• 2:19
  That's right. It's always funny to see people get mad.
• 2:22
  When something changes because you're just counting the ballots, right?
• 2:26
  Well, provisionals are provisionals. They have something has to be checked.
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  And so in theory, that would be the safest thing to do.
• 2:33
  Instead of just count that ballot, put it in the stack of provisional to where
• 2:37
  you have to make sure that was properly cast. Yeah.
• 2:40
  I think my wife had to do a provisional ballot this year because she her address was at a at our old house.
• 2:47
  So I guess she was among those. Get set to the side.
• 2:51
  Yeah. I wonder, does that include people who didn't have their license at election
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  day and they come back and cure? Or is that a thing?
• 3:00
  Oh, I don't think, to my knowledge, nobody who didn't have their license got
• 3:04
  past the poll workers. I thought maybe there was like a provisional ballot you fill out.
• 3:08
  You know, John, I don't know the answer to that. Okay. Getting in the weeds a little bit.
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  John always throws a question like that. Just somebody get the poll work. See, yeah.
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  John thinks we work in Board of Elections. In reporting, you always like to
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  throw in a question that makes. That nobody knows the answer to.
• 3:26
  You've got to look it up. Yeah. Yeah. So that's interesting.
• 3:29
  But we did have the legislature come back this week for the ongoing session is still going on.
• 3:36
  Right. And what happened down there this week? Here, it's still happening.
• 3:39
  They're in session today. They've taken out a recess until two o'clock this afternoon.
• 3:43
  But they came back yesterday mainly to address storm relief from Hurricane Helene.
• 3:49
  The day before, there had been quite a hearing of Governor Cooper's people about past hurricanes.
• 3:56
  So all of that kind of played into the rhetoric of yesterday and getting this bill passed.
• 4:01
  $227 million came out of the Rainy Day Fund and was put into the Hurricane Helene Fund.
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  However, none of that money was appropriated. And my understanding at the end
• 4:10
  of yesterday was it will be sitting there for the next General Assembly to appropriate
• 4:13
  out, which leaves you to question how that's actually helping anybody right this minute.
• 4:18
  I mean, wouldn't it be sitting there anyway? Why do they even have to do that, right?
• 4:22
  Two million of it goes to Department of Ag for water and soil issues.
• 4:27
  And there was a lot of other stuff besides just storm relief money.
• 4:31
  There were some changes politically. There was shift of oversight of the elections
• 4:36
  from the governor's appointees.
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  The governor usually appoints the board of elections to the new Republican state
• 4:42
  auditor who will appoint three Republicans and two Democrats.
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  But it will move from under the governor's purview to the state auditor.
• 4:51
  And what was the reason given for the need for that?
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  Just to the winner go the spoils? Yeah. Okay. I mean, it just very much feels
• 4:58
  like trying to shift power.
• 5:00
  Well, sure. And it's interesting because usually it's the secretary of state's
• 5:05
  office who does things like that, right?
• 5:07
  Auditor seems an odd place. No other state has it in their auditor's office.
• 5:13
  So that's interesting. The governor will fill judicial vacancies with recommendations
• 5:18
  provided by the political party of departing judges. So found that interesting.
• 5:23
  The attorney general will be restricted from participating in lawsuits,
• 5:27
  mostly lawsuits that involve the legislature. The attorney general will be.
• 5:32
  He will be restricted from participating in lawsuits, mostly that involve the legislature.
• 5:37
  But wasn't there like a big thing about how Staden wasn't supporting their lawsuits at one time?
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  Yeah, at one time they hired private counsel, more than once.
• 5:46
  Yeah, because there was a big fuss over taxpayer dollars being spent for private counsel.
• 5:51
  Was there a debate on any of that while you were there? All the Democrats,
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  of course, spoke against all of these provisions. Did any of the public speak?
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  No, the bill, you know, everybody got the bill just a short time before session actually convened.
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  So there wasn't a whole lot of time for that. But no, no public comment.
• 6:07
  There was also provision in it to separate the highway patrol from DPS.
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  To where? Their own separate entity. Create the Department of Highway Patrol?
• 6:17
  I don't know. What's the thinking on that?
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  So see, all of this, nobody had conversation. Of course, no one can answer. Yeah, that makes sense.
• 6:24
  All right. The Utilities Commission, they give one of the governor's appointments
• 6:28
  to the treasurer for the Utilities Commission.
• 6:32
  State school superintendent will lose the power to appeal to the board decisions
• 6:36
  regarding charter schools.
• 6:38
  And there were some budgetary changes when I spoke about the other hurricanes,
• 6:43
  Matthew and Florence, $50 million from damage from those two hurricanes where
• 6:47
  people still don't have their homes.
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  So, yeah. I mean, that was a busy day. That's a lot of things.
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  Yeah, there was a lot of. They came prepared, huh?
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  Making the most of their little bit of time they have left. But the biggest
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  news, at least I saw out of the legislature, was the whole private school voucher program.
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  Yeah. They overrode the governor's veto.
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  So that will become law now. And was it $478 million? I forget how much money
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  it was right off the top of my head.
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  That will go to funding school vouchers. And that bill also requires sheriff's offices to work with.
• 7:21
  ICE regarding detainments and immigration.
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  You know, I was a little surprised that with the storm costing nearly $60 billion
• 7:32
  in damage that they plowed forward with that.
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  Because there's some schools around here that are private schools that won't
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  even let you use one of those opportunity scholarships. So it doesn't give you
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  the chance to go to put your kid anywhere you want to that's a private school.
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  Yeah, it's kind of a skewed as far as school choice.
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  And a lot of, I've watched some TikToks and things from other states where it's
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  happened. And the people say
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  it just results in the private school raising their tuition by that much.
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  You know, so it was like it costs $7,000 a year. Now it costs $14,000 a year. Yeah.
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  And there's still going to be so many people that depend on the public school.
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  But I really, I did wonder, in all honesty, I wondered if the sheer cost of
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  the storm would make the legislature decide that half a billion dollars just
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  wasn't available for that right now.
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  I mean, it had already passed. This was just overriding the veto.
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  I guess this is kind of a philosophical question, but what entity,
• 8:32
  the state or the federal government, has the most responsibility in that cleanup?
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  Or, you know, like where are you going to get $60 billion? I mean,
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  it's going to take everything, all of the local government's coffers,
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  all of the state coffers, all of the federal,
• 8:47
  you know, when I say all of, it's going to take maximum resources from every type.
• 8:52
  The state has to spend a certain amount to pull down federal funds.
• 8:56
  Right. And it seems like insurance companies would go bankrupt.
• 9:01
  I mean, you know, it just seems like there's a massive need all over the place whenever.
• 9:05
  Well, I mean, one of the big issues right now is people who had no reason to
• 9:10
  have flood insurance. They weren't a floodplain.
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  Who are being denied by the insurance companies because they're like,
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  we're not going to pay for it because you didn't have flood coverage.
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  And I think that will be one of the biggest topics in the legislature to come
• 9:23
  out of this storm, aside from just funding needs, is there will no doubt be
• 9:28
  a complete overhaul of our insurance rules and regulations.
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  And, you know, we're probably marching down the path like Florida where insurance
• 9:36
  on any home is going to get high compared to now, no matter where you are,
• 9:41
  because that's going to have to be absorbed. by everybody.
• 9:44
  Yeah. Anything else happen, Ellen, this week? Well, we'll know by the end of the day.
• 9:48
  Oh, it's still going on. State Capitol getting moved to like Myrtle Beach or anything.
• 9:52
  I mean, never know what might have been put in the bill.
• 9:54
  Where would you put it to maximize elective impact or the electoral impact?
• 10:00
  You can put it and bring all those jobs to Robinson County. Yeah, I'll just say.
• 10:07
  Oh, me. Okay, well. Well, I mean, good news that we did here.
• 10:12
  Yesterday, and I know Representative Prather talked about it on the floor,
• 10:15
  too, is that Asheville has running water again with no boil warning that you
• 10:20
  have to boil water. So that was good news.
• 10:23
  Yeah, that's a lot of people. Yeah. So that's a big deal. That was good news. Clean water, man. Yeah.
• 10:29
  Tidbits from yesterday. The House elected their new leadership for the upcoming,
• 10:33
  the new General Assembly.
• 10:35
  Representative Destin Hall, who's the former rules chair, will be the new Speaker
• 10:39
  of the House, Representative Mitchell Setzer,
• 10:42
  who is finance and insurance chair, will be the new speaker pro tem.
• 10:47
  I'm not sure if he'll be keeping the gavels to those committees yet or not.
• 10:51
  Representative John Bale, who's been a great friend to us, former majority leader,
• 10:55
  will now be the rules chair.
• 10:56
  And Representative Brendan Jones, who was deputy majority leader,
• 11:01
  will now be majority leader.
• 11:02
  There was apparently a lot of discussion over deputy majority leaders,
• 11:07
  and that will be split between Representative Winslow and Zinger.
• 11:11
  That should be interesting.
• 11:13
  And I guess on the other side, Reeves is still a leadership?
• 11:16
  Yes, still a minority leader. There was some child care money included in that
• 11:19
  bill as well that we were just discussing.
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  No changes in the Senate though, right? No leadership changes.
• 11:25
  So when does that session start? In January? Yeah, end of January.
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  It's usually around 22nd, 23rd, 24th. I'm not sure what day it falls on.
• 11:34
  And the House will not have a super majority officially.
• 11:38
  Not one vote. Not right now. Not right now. Not at the moment.
• 11:43
  You know, I think as we're watching the picks that President-elect Trump is
• 11:50
  making for his cabinet and thinking about how that might shape politics and
• 11:54
  the fact that all of Congress will be controlled by the same party as the president.
• 11:58
  So that's when you just do whatever you want to do.
• 12:01
  And there's so much talk about repealing the ACA, about aspects of,
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  you know, we just did Medicaid expansion here in North Carolina.
• 12:09
  And you have to wonder, like all those dollars that you pull down,
• 12:13
  Changes are made to policy that would restrict those dollars from flowing to the states.
• 12:18
  I mean, is there going to be a brand new Medicaid expansion debate?
• 12:22
  There's so many things that I'm watching on the federal level thinking, oh, my goodness.
• 12:27
  You know, usually they want to get in here, get a budget done,
• 12:30
  basically come here with the budget in their mind and get out as quickly as possible.
• 12:34
  And I think there's going to be so much that they have to discuss just because
• 12:39
  states have to follow, kind of respond to what's being done in D.C.
• 12:44
  We'll have to wait to see what director of Medicaid, Dr. Oz,
• 12:47
  thinks of that, what his plans are, right? Yeah.
• 12:51
  No one has any idea about any of it. But I do think that when you have so many
• 12:55
  members of Congress talking about repealing the ACA, there's no question.
• 12:59
  It's definitely on the table.
• 13:01
  Education as well. See what I mean, they may just just eradicate the Department
• 13:05
  of Education, although they did nominate Linda McMahon for secretary of education yesterday.
• 13:11
  Well, I don't know what you would be secretary of education without a department.
• 13:17
  Yeah. Secretary of yourself.
• 13:19
  I mean, I don't get that, but I guess we'll find out.
• 13:22
  But my point is, I believe that this is going to be states playing catch-up
• 13:27
  in response to what I suppose will be kind of breathtakingly fast and extreme policy change.
• 13:35
  I think we'll all be kind of reacting for a long time. I think that's right.
• 13:40
  Yeah. I think that's absolutely right. There's nothing else to do at this point
• 13:44
  but to wait and then choose what you're going to do next.
• 13:48
  Well, one thing we do notice coming down the pike is a shortfall in the state health plan.
• 13:53
  Right. There's a shortfall in that. And that's something we've been talking about for a while.
• 13:58
  Treasurer Falwell has drawn incredible attention to it with the legislature.
• 14:02
  So that's another reason I'm a little surprised given the mass disaster and
• 14:05
  things like that that are sitting right in front of us that the half a billion
• 14:09
  still went out the door to do the school thing. But,
• 14:12
  We have footage from this past week. Yeah.
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  Our president, Kurt Montgomery, went to the State Health Land Board of Trustees
• 14:20
  meeting. I think it was kind of like a... It was a work session. Work session.
• 14:23
  Yeah. Not technically the main hearing of the country.
• 14:27
  Then he was allowed the opportunity to kind of explain where employees are right
• 14:32
  now and how they can't foot the bill for this big shortfall that's coming.
• 14:36
  I guess by 2027, it's going to be $1.7 billion, right?
• 14:40
  Well, who knows? I mean, it could get exponentially worse again,
• 14:44
  depending on policy changes at the federal level. That could affect this as well.
• 14:48
  There's so much that just remains to be seen. What we know is the change was
• 14:53
  going to be extraordinary.
• 14:54
  If nothing else changed policy-wise at the federal level, we know the state
• 14:59
  health plan was nowhere near going to be able to keep up with its bills.
• 15:02
  And it was going to be in the red deeply.
• 15:03
  And we've been down this road before in the past.
• 15:06
  And the fact of the matter is they always come looking to the employees.
• 15:11
  So Suzanne and I were able to catch President Montgomery after his speech on Friday to the board.
• 15:18
  And we have a little clip here we're going to play of, you know,
• 15:21
  us talking to him about what his thoughts were.
• 15:23
  OK, so joining us today is the president of Scenic, Kirk Montgomery.
• 15:28
  He's stopped by on his way back from the treasurer's office.
• 15:33
  Today is Friday, by the way. We're recording this in advance.
• 15:37
  But Suzanne Beasley, our government relations director, is also in here.
• 15:41
  And we're going to just kind of give a little debrief with Kirk on what his
• 15:45
  reaction to the whole State Health Plan Board of Trustees meeting.
• 15:51
  Thank you, President Montgomery, for joining us today and speaking to the State Health Plan.
• 15:56
  The State Health Plan had a working day today to start planning,
• 16:00
  talking about their budget.
• 16:01
  You know, we've been talking about it for a long time now that the plan is going
• 16:05
  to run out of money. probably 2026.
• 16:08
  We're going to be out of cash. So there was discussion around that today.
• 16:11
  We were invited to come and speak on how this would affect our members and state employees as a whole.
• 16:17
  And President Montgomery was able to speak to the board. What'd you think?
• 16:21
  I think, you know, it was a good opportunity.
• 16:24
  One of the things that I want to discuss was ensuring that state employees and
• 16:27
  our members, you know, they can't afford the additional cost that it would take
• 16:31
  if the plan had added for them to have to pay for more things.
• 16:35
  I think the board was very receptive as far as what we were saying,
• 16:39
  but I think they're stuck between a rock and a hard place because they have
• 16:43
  to make sure that the dollars match and that things are put in place to ensure that we're solvent.
• 16:49
  But we at CENIC will always fight for state employees. We will make sure that
• 16:53
  we can do everything that we can to ensure that their benefits are taken care of.
• 16:58
  Because state employees, they came to the state because they wanted to give
• 17:03
  public service and be a service to the community.
• 17:06
  And they took the hit on benefits and things of that nature because of what's happening now.
• 17:12
  Used to be the state employees would come to work for the state because there
• 17:15
  was great benefits. Right.
• 17:17
  Now you can go to the to the private sector and get just as good or better benefits
• 17:22
  than you can with the state.
• 17:23
  And for them to have to, you know, and I just kind of put it blunt,
• 17:27
  you know, have a slap in the face to where they have to pay additional cost
• 17:30
  for their health plan is something that, you know, that we have to stand up for.
• 17:35
  Yeah. So, Suzanne, do you have any figures or is I guess what does it mean to
• 17:41
  say that it's going to run out of money? Yeah, I mean, we're going to run out
• 17:44
  of cash operationally. Operating cash.
• 17:47
  Yeah, so, you know, the way to fix that is whatever the plan can come up with
• 17:52
  within their own budget and obviously legislative funding.
• 17:55
  We as the lobbying team here at Scenic will be hitting the ground,
• 17:59
  going for that money for funding the plan and not balancing that budget on the
• 18:03
  backs of state employees that haven't gotten pay raises that keep up with the cost of living.
• 18:08
  I mean, they're already struggling just to put gas in your car and groceries
• 18:12
  on the table and child care and adding even one more dollar to their backs is a problem.
• 18:20
  I was looking at some numbers for Wayne Fish serves on the state health plan
• 18:24
  board of trustees as the active employee voice.
• 18:27
  So I was looking at some numbers for him this morning just for his information.
• 18:31
  And the majority of employees make below $50,000 a year.
• 18:35
  So there are about 75,000 state employees. About 6,700 of those state employees
• 18:40
  make $100,000 or more, which completely skews the average salary of our lower paid state employees.
• 18:46
  But 59% of state employees make under $50,000.
• 18:51
  So I think a big thing that we're concerned about is increasing premiums specifically, right?
• 18:58
  Right now, I think it's like $50 a month. It's $30. $30? Yeah.
• 19:02
  Okay, still in the ballpark there. Yeah. So what would you see that going up to?
• 19:08
  So I think we'll hear more about that at the next Board of Trustees meeting,
• 19:12
  because that's what they were working on today. They're talking about those numbers.
• 19:16
  So, Suzanne, is that for the 80-20 plan? Because I know they were talking about
• 19:20
  the 70-30 plan as well. Yeah. Okay.
• 19:23
  Yeah. Yeah. And you made a good point that, you know, retirees that were hired
• 19:27
  after January 2021 no longer get the state health plan at retirement.
• 19:32
  So, you know, that's something they've got to throw in the mix. How does that affect...
• 19:36
  The state's coffers going forward. But yeah, this is going to be a push for
• 19:41
  scenic when we start the long session because that plan just has to be funded.
• 19:45
  This is a promise that was made to state employees when they came to work.
• 19:49
  And it's used as, well, it used to be used as a recruiting tool as well,
• 19:53
  that you're probably not going to make as much in the private sector if you
• 19:57
  work for the state, but you're going to get better benefits.
• 20:00
  Yeah. And when you're vested, you have them all the way through your retirement.
• 20:03
  Right. Yeah. The transparency issue, though, you hit that hard in your comments to the board. Yeah.
• 20:09
  And that, you know, that's a, that's a major thing that we have to look at is
• 20:12
  that the transparency issue has the contracts that have been pushed out does
• 20:18
  not allow by law the treasurer or anyone else to actually see what's being paid for.
• 20:22
  We all know Treasurer Falwell would always come with this, with this book that
• 20:27
  was redacted almost 99%.
• 20:30
  And so we really need to push forward in sharing that the transparency is put
• 20:34
  in place Because, you know, we know that we're paying up to three to eight hundred
• 20:38
  percent more because we don't know what we're paying for.
• 20:41
  And you obviously speak to a lot of members. And how hard would it be for them
• 20:47
  to pay more in their premiums?
• 20:50
  With them not having pay raises that accounted towards inflation,
• 20:54
  you have to understand gas prices are going up, things of that nature.
• 20:57
  So 20 or 30 dollars to some people may not be a lot. Right.
• 21:02
  But that could be food on someone's table. It could be gas in someone's car.
• 21:07
  Things of that nature is what we really have to consider because,
• 21:10
  as you say, a lot of the people are less than, is it the $50,000 mark?
• 21:14
  And so those few dollars make a lot of difference for a lot of people.
• 21:19
  So this is an issue we'll definitely be watching as the new legislature comes into town.
• 21:24
  Absolutely. We also, just a little side note, got to meet Treasury-elect Brad Briner today.
• 21:29
  So we'll be. What was your impression of him?
• 21:32
  He seems to be a nice person, but remains to be seen what remains to be seen.
• 21:37
  We have to ensure that that, you know, that we stand up for state employees.
• 21:41
  So if rather you're nice or not, if it doesn't meet the needs of our members,
• 21:45
  we have to stand up for that. Yes, sir.
• 21:48
  Well, thanks for coming in. Just we'll let you get back to home.
• 21:51
  I know you have stuff to do.
• 21:52
  So thanks for coming in and giving us a few minutes here. Thank you,
• 21:56
  Mr. President. Thank you.
• 21:58
  OK, so great interview there with Kirk Montgomery, our president,
• 22:01
  if I do say so myself. So just a wonderful interview. It was.
• 22:04
  It was a good interview. I hate hearing myself talk, by the way.
• 22:07
  But anyway, so what were your thoughts on, I guess, what he said at the meeting
• 22:12
  and, you know, where we go from there?
• 22:14
  Yeah, I think it was a great thing for the Health Plan Board of Trustees to hear.
• 22:17
  I think it was really important for the treasurer-elect, Brad Brunner, to hear it.
• 22:22
  And where does that leave us? Well, when the president talks about contracts
• 22:26
  and not being transparent, obviously what he's speaking of every time,
• 22:30
  if you're a state employee listening to this, Your health plan contracts, not directly,
• 22:35
  your health plan contracts through the insurance company that's what's called
• 22:39
  the third-party administrator, so a middleman.
• 22:41
  And starting in January, that middleman will be Aetna. Aetna negotiates prices
• 22:46
  for anything you go get healthcare-wise.
• 22:49
  So if you go to the doctor, if you go to a specialist, if you go to a hospital.
• 22:53
  Aetna will have negotiated with those people what their prices will be.
• 22:57
  Now, it's not one thing across the board. So if you live in a certain area,
• 23:02
  they might pay that hospital or doctor a whole lot more than they do a doctor
• 23:07
  or hospital in another area.
• 23:08
  But here's where it gets crazy. In the city of Raleigh alone,
• 23:11
  they might pay a whole lot more
• 23:13
  to one hospital or doctor than another that's two miles down the road.
• 23:17
  It makes no sense. But more importantly, when President Montgomery says transparency,
• 23:24
  no one gets to see those contracts that, in this case, Aetna,
• 23:29
  but before it was Blue Cross.
• 23:30
  So we're not picking on Aetna or Blue Cross. It's whoever holds that third party,
• 23:34
  that middleman contract.
• 23:35
  No one gets to see what the middleman and the health care industry have decided
• 23:40
  amongst themselves is the right thing for the state health plan to pay.
• 23:44
  So why should you care what they're paying them? Because now they're going to
• 23:47
  have their hand out to you.
• 23:49
  And when I say they, I mean the Health Plan Board of Trustees, the legislature,
• 23:54
  because Treasurer Falwell was the only political official who ever stood up
• 24:01
  in this state and said, this is a bunch of bull.
• 24:05
  We should absolutely see these contracts. Everybody yells about they want transparency
• 24:12
  from government until you talk about health care and then nobody on either side,
• 24:16
  Republican or Democrat, wants any transparency on that mess.
• 24:21
  And so Falwell stood up and said, no, this is ridiculous. How am I going to balance this thing out?
• 24:26
  And how are we not going to go to state employees and retirees and tell them,
• 24:30
  you need to pay more out-of-pocket, whether it's a premium increase,
• 24:35
  a deductible increase, an out-of-pocket maximum increase.
• 24:39
  All we know is it does take money out of the wallet of state employees.
• 24:45
  And that's how it's always been fixed when there's a shortfall.
• 24:49
  So in this plan, what'd you say? It's going to be $1.4 billion in the hole by 2027.
• 24:54
  The only people they will look to, unless a miracle happens,
• 24:58
  is going to be the state employees.
• 25:00
  Oh, it's just going to cost so much more. We can't do anything for you.
• 25:03
  We are going to have to pay more for your health care.
• 25:05
  And I would suspect that what little you could raise from premiums and things
• 25:10
  like that pales in comparison to what you could raise in savings if you take
• 25:15
  a look at those contracts, right?
• 25:16
  And you actually have... But it's the same kind of thing.
• 25:20
  You know, again, at the federal level, we're hearing all this stuff from Elon
• 25:24
  Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy about we need to go in there and clean up all this
• 25:30
  inefficiency and overpayments.
• 25:32
  And health care economists are screaming, y'all, look at what government is
• 25:37
  paying health care providers.
• 25:39
  But you can't look at it. So, if people believe we do need more efficiency in
• 25:46
  government, this should be the very, that's low-hanging fruit,
• 25:49
  the very first place they could go and get a whole lot of savings.
• 25:52
  But again, I would bet my paycheck that instead they will, with a straight face,
• 25:58
  try to float the idea that employees should just pay more for their health care.
• 26:02
  And we will be there to fight that in any manner we can, in any manner necessary.
• 26:08
  Will be. All right, well, we'll definitely be watching that issue in January
• 26:12
  when they come back, right?
• 26:13
  And do you expect movement on something like that, like in the budget debate or?
• 26:17
  That usually would end up in the budget. There has to be something in the budget
• 26:20
  or else that whole gets bigger.
• 26:23
  Debate, that's a whole other story because it's been a long time since things
• 26:26
  have been a vetting committee. By the way, the state health plan still has a
• 26:29
  giant IOU from COVID. Yeah, $240 million. From the legislature.
• 26:34
  They need to pay. And where's the money going to come from now?
• 26:38
  The money needed to be paid at the time out of the COVID relief funds,
• 26:42
  the billions of dollars we raked in in the state.
• 26:45
  And the most direct use of those funds should have been the COVID expenses for a public health plan.
• 26:53
  Right out the gate. Good grief. So bringing this full circle to what we hear
• 26:57
  most from members with a state health plan that may be in trouble financially
• 27:03
  with possible economic downturn that make possible disruptions with tariffs.
• 27:09
  What is the prospect of an actual raise in the next session?
• 27:14
  Do we want to go there? Well, I mean, they need to come up with one.
• 27:17
  One of the big problems with trying to address this disaster is the fact we
• 27:22
  didn't have enough people. And all along, we kept saying, eventually,
• 27:26
  the chickens will come home to roost on this.
• 27:29
  And they did. Chickens are here. So, I mean, we didn't have enough state employees in place.
• 27:34
  And the ones that were in place, they did heroic efforts.
• 27:38
  But when people are very upset, they don't feel like their government was there.
• 27:42
  They don't have any clue that 25% of their government isn't even employed because those are vacant jobs.
• 27:48
  And if you don't come up with pay raises, and when you ask from where this year, I don't know.
• 27:53
  But if, again, with the kind of spending we're seeing that is kind of bizarre,
• 27:58
  apparently it can be found somewhere. And so that we will not only push for that, but.
• 28:03
  Fiscal research employees are super talented. They are very talented.
• 28:07
  But, you know, no one knows what the tax revenue is going to look like and nobody
• 28:10
  has serious discussions until you do.
• 28:13
  So that should be a fun year. So speaking of the mountains and tragedy up there,
• 28:18
  we were able to ship our donated goods up to, I guess, Mountain View Correctional
• 28:25
  and Spruce Pine last week.
• 28:27
  It seemed like it was a resounding success. It seemed from the pictures that
• 28:31
  First President Wendell Powell sent down that he was having a good time up there
• 28:35
  with helping folks. Yeah.
• 28:37
  And I mean, once again, in our membership, two of our executive committee members,
• 28:43
  Cliff Johnson and Jamie Robinson, who've been this whole time organizing things
• 28:47
  out west and trying to organize fellow scenic chairs and other leadership to get involved.
• 28:53
  They did an amazing job planning all of this.
• 28:56
  And on our staff, Brad Longhans was, he was the man.
• 29:00
  We had a pod out front, y'all, and people were very generous bringing things.
• 29:05
  But don't think you were putting something in that pod without Brad knowing
• 29:08
  where it was going so that it was packed correctly.
• 29:10
  I told y'all, Brad was working his tail off that week.
• 29:14
  I looked out there. He was out there. He had a whole system.
• 29:18
  He had a whole system. Nobody was getting in his way because he told us not
• 29:22
  to. He did not touch anything in that pod without him knowing.
• 29:26
  And his partner in crime, Lynn Cody, they look between all of those folks,
• 29:30
  either on the phone with one another or here fussing over the pod with one another.
• 29:35
  That was a really, really amazing effort. We should see if he has some statistics
• 29:39
  like 500 toilet paper rolls or things like that. I would not be surprised.
• 29:45
  He probably does. He probably does. He probably does. He probably does.
• 29:46
  He probably does. He probably does. He probably does. He probably does.
• 29:47
  Oh, we got to do the bottles.
• 29:48
  I mean, he definitely kept an inventory. Definitely got to get those stats.
• 29:50
  That's another, I guess, not related topic to that, but we did partner with
• 29:56
  the State Employees Credit Union this week on a loan program.
• 30:00
  We announced it this week, yeah. So when we heard that the state is not going
• 30:04
  to do early checks in December, I guess a couple months ago,
• 30:08
  we kind of approached the State Employees Credit Union to see if there's any
• 30:13
  way they could alleviate the strain a little bit for employees.
• 30:16
  And they were willing to work with us.
• 30:19
  Yeah, they immediately jumped right in on it and have been a great partner.
• 30:23
  You know, it took a while before we could announce anything because when you're
• 30:26
  going to do a lending product, there's so many federal laws that you have to abide by.
• 30:30
  And they had to do all their due diligence and craft something.
• 30:33
  They came up with a great short-term, low-interest loan to help bridge that
• 30:38
  gap for folks who are used to getting that paycheck early in December.
• 30:41
  And it was so late in the year that they were told they wouldn't get it.
• 30:45
  So thank you very, very much to the state employees credit union for jumping
• 30:49
  in and for a lot of people, I think, saving the day.
• 30:53
  Yeah. And I work with the communications folks over there and I don't envy the
• 30:57
  hoops they have to jump through with their wording. Yeah.
• 31:01
  But I will just kind of synopsize of what the plan is.
• 31:05
  You can get up to $1,000 at a 5% APR six-month term.
• 31:10
  So that could really help someone who needs to buy Christmas gifts.
• 31:14
  Well, so many employees depend on that early paycheck. Yeah.
• 31:17
  Somebody who's going out of town to see family. And, you know,
• 31:20
  I mean, it's just a great thing. And we're very thankful to them for making it happen.
• 31:25
  And for what is honestly was a quick turnaround, even though,
• 31:28
  you know, it felt like, why does this take so long?
• 31:31
  Because we're not used to having to deal with what they have to deal with.
• 31:34
  That's serious business.
• 31:36
  And so it was really a quick turnaround considering. It really was.
• 31:39
  And I guess it's important to say, you know, this is probably not a huge moneymaker
• 31:43
  for them. They kind of did it out of the kindness of their hearts.
• 31:46
  They did, yeah. We really appreciate it. And I think their communication staff
• 31:50
  tried to make it clear to me to say that it's not a scenic program.
• 31:55
  This is a state employee's program. It's available to all state employees.
• 31:59
  So it's not like we're not involved in the loan aspects of it.
• 32:03
  Absolutely not. No, that would be illegal.
• 32:06
  I'm sure it would be. I was going to say illegal, but I'm not sure.
• 32:08
  Just a little disclaimer.
• 32:09
  Well, it's just not what we do. I mean, it's not what we do.
• 32:12
  But we did reach out to them.
• 32:14
  So one more topic that just came to my mind this week, and I know we talked
• 32:18
  about it a little bit on our last podcast, but do we have any sense of what
• 32:23
  changes are coming to the Stein administration, the leadership and the agencies,
• 32:28
  or are we not at that point yet?
• 32:30
  We have spoken with the transition team because there's certainly some agency
• 32:35
  heads that we adore and put our two cents in there.
• 32:39
  They're working all that out right now. We'll know very soon.
• 32:43
  Okay, so we don't have anything to it. Well, obviously we don't want to get
• 32:47
  ahead of governor. We can't scoop the governor-elect.
• 32:50
  Okay, but when you see changes like this with the same party,
• 32:53
  do you see a lot of changes? Oftentimes you do because people have folks who've
• 32:59
  been with them through their career. People have their people. Okay.
• 33:03
  Well, that's a good thing to look forward to. I guess we'll end with the question of the week.
• 33:08
  John Swacky, weird question of the week.
• 33:15
  So what is your favorite Thanksgiving side dish?
• 33:20
  Dressing, but it must have gravy
• 33:22
  and cranberry sauce. Yeah, definitely the dressing. Side of the side.
• 33:25
  Yeah. What about you, Sam? It's always been stuffing. See? It's dressing.
• 33:30
  Do you know the difference? It's stuffing. Do you know the difference?
• 33:33
  What I've always been told is the difference.
• 33:35
  Dressing is outside of the turkey. Stuffing is inside of the turkey. We do both.
• 33:41
  My household always does both because there are some people in our family who
• 33:45
  do not like mushrooms. So one of them has mushrooms in it and one of them does not.
• 33:49
  Yeah. And also some people like the crust on top from baking it in the oven
• 33:55
  without it being in the turkey. And some people like it softer.
• 33:58
  See, my grandma would have just been like, y'all gonna eat what you get.
• 34:03
  Yeah, although we do have some family members in my wife's family who don't
• 34:07
  like, say, nuts and things like that. So they have to make a separate sweet
• 34:12
  potato casserole for her, which is also a good side, by the way.
• 34:15
  Are you calling your wife's family high maintenance? No.
• 34:19
  I would never say that. That's sweet potato casserole. Let's get back to that. Oh, man. Yeah.
• 34:24
  It's like a dessert. What about you, Artis? What's your favorite?
• 34:27
  You know, Suzanne and I were talking about it this week. Thanksgiving,
• 34:31
  the traditional Thanksgiving meal,
• 34:33
  It's just not my favorite meal. Oh, my God. I think it is my favorite meal. Is it?
• 34:38
  It's not my favorite meal. But in any meal, my favorite side dish is bread.
• 34:42
  Oh, yeah. So rolls, you know, good rolls like you have at a special occasion.
• 34:47
  Sister Schubert rolls. I do like Sister Schubert rolls. But green bean bundles are also good.
• 34:53
  The green beans with a big meal with like some caramelized egg.
• 34:59
  So delicious. Those are good. Even the green bean casserole these days.
• 35:03
  I think if you get older, you start liking it.
• 35:05
  But more importantly, what's your favorite Thanksgiving dessert?
• 35:08
  In camp, huh? Pumpkin cheesecake.
• 35:11
  Ooh, that sounds good. Y'all are very fancy at your house.
• 35:15
  My wife makes something with, like, strawberries, and it has,
• 35:19
  like, Jell-O, and then whipped cream, and then, like, pretzels on top.
• 35:23
  It's pretty good. I don't know if that's a good dessert, but it's really good. Well, it's Jell-O.
• 35:29
  Yeah. If it's got Jell-O in it, it's a dessert. Yeah.
• 35:32
  And then my aunt makes chocolate. I just talk. I get so excited about food.
• 35:37
  I mean, obviously. He's so excited
• 35:39
  right now. And my aunt Debbie makes the world's best chocolate eclair.
• 35:43
  I feel like at my household, the reason that some of our stuff seems like extra
• 35:48
  fancy is because my parents grew up not liking Thanksgiving dinner and they
• 35:53
  wanted to change the way things were made.
• 35:55
  So they always looked up new recipes and they were like, we're going to try
• 35:59
  this instead. And then those things just stuck.
• 36:02
  I respect that. Because we've done their own traditions.
• 36:04
  We've done pumpkin pie in the past. We've done like normal green bean casserole
• 36:08
  but then recently my mom found a green bean casserole recipe that doesn't have
• 36:11
  cream of mushroom soup in it. Yeah.
• 36:13
  And it's more of like this sweet and savory sauce with still got bacon, still got fried onions.
• 36:21
  Okay, I'm getting hungry. I think this is going to be a food podcast from now on.
• 36:25
  Lunchtime. I mean, I can host a food podcast. I do teach my friend how to cook. Oh, that's, yeah.
• 36:30
  You got to look up the TikTok where the lady's telling her family member not
• 36:35
  to experiment with the mac and cheese from something she found on the internet.
• 36:39
  Do not mess with the mac and cheese. That is one thing you never experiment
• 36:41
  with. Don't mess with the mac and cheese, right?
• 36:43
  And we get mac and cheese here a lot at Scenic for the lunches and things.
• 36:48
  And we know when it's a bad mac and cheese, right? The whole staff will be like, We sure do.
• 36:52
  Don't know about that mac and cheese. We have good health care here at Scenic,
• 36:55
  thank God, because we do have a lot of mac and cheese.
• 36:58
  You can tell when people have liked the mac and cheese Based on how much is
• 37:03
  left after the lunch Sometimes there's a lot left Okay,
• 37:08
  well that was a great episode If I do say so myself Especially ending in food
• 37:12
  Thank you for listening And have a great week Happy Thanksgiving Well,
• 37:17
  is that our last one before Thanksgiving?
• 37:19
  Are we going to do one next Wednesday? We need to do it Okay,
• 37:22
  well they can still have a happy Thanksgiving Yeah Just in case Bye.
• 37:28
  Music.