This is a rather confusing, confounding and interesting article in today’s Daily News. In it, Pete Donohue reports on and seemingly criticizes a few MTA divisions for health care spending. Take a look:
Nice perk if you can get it.
Three MTA divisions will pay up to $600,000 over five years for an executive medical program providing head-to-toe physicals and sophisticated tests – free of charge. In addition to basic medical plans, suits at NYC Transit, MTA Bus and MTA Bridges and Tunnels get more comprehensive health care for which other staffers have to pay deductibles or co-payments.
“I’m all for preventative care but you shouldn’t offer something to managers that the workers can’t get,” Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign said.
I’d say that’s a perk of being the manager. Upper level managers at private companies enjoy perks, and if the MTA wants to compete for the services of qualified people, they’ll dole out the perks too. In defense of the health care, Paul Fleuranges, a spokesman at Transit, says that this preventative health care expenditure outweighs the cost of treating illness later on.
In the end, this seems to me to be much ado about nothing. The $600,000 is but a drop in the MTA’s financial bucket, and the agency — as it should be — is spending far more on health care and pensions for its union workers as well. If anything, this story just makes the case for cheaper universal health coverage than it does for a poorly-run MTA. Still, anything to generate some populist outrage, right?
2 comments
I’m not buying the line that it’s some sort of “cost-saving” measure. Unless it really is one. In which case, why not offer it to everybody? … You’re right, that IS a confusing article.
wow… this attack the rich for being rich has now spread to those making between 80 and 200k a year now?
sounds like this guy is a huge hater. you work hard, study hard, go to school, take on debt with student loans, and then decide to take on the responsibility of being a manager and your reward is that you get the same benefits as you would have got if you wasn’t a manager? nice. I guess a pat on the back (and a pay cut too while your at it) is more than good enough
seriously imagine the cost to do that for 36000+ employees… I’m done lol