We Need Your Support!

A Public Hearing has been scheduled to discuss
the “Dillon Plan”: 

Thursday, August 6th 

1:00p.m. – 3:00 p.m. 

At the Michigan State Building in Grand Rapids 

(350 Ottawa Ave., Grand Rapids) 

Speaker Dillon’s plan to create a statewide health care plan for all public employees
is based on questionable estimates of cost savings and a state government that can’t
even balance a budget. We need members to speak at the hearing about the following
topics:

Where are the savings coming from? There is no way this plan will deliver on its
promise to save millions without drastically cutting benefits and shifting
increased costs to employees.

Public school employees have already delivered millions in savings by accepting
lower salaries, cuts to their benefits and sharing in the cost of health care. (Give
specific examples from your experience.)

Public school employees are already part of large pools. Creating an even larger
pool for health care, as Speaker Dillon proposes, will, at some point, become a
cost increase.

Do we really trust the government to run anything on this large a scale? How has
it done so far?

Speaker Dillon’s plan will eliminate any local control over costs and benefits.
Why should we strip local school districts and local governments of the ability to
make the right decisions regarding their employees and their communities when
it comes to health care benefits?

Public Employees are taxpayers. This does not save them anything. It merely
shifts the costs and burdens to them.

Speaker Dillon’s plan is not the way to deal with the health care issue. We need
national leadership from Washington to deal with a national issue – not a risky
experiment in Lansing during disastrous economic times.