GOP legislator takes on public employee benefits

Rep. Ron Maurer, R-Grants Pass, wants Oregon state public employees to start paying a share of their health-care benefits to raise money for indigent care. This idea is not going to fly anytime soon in a Legislature controlled by Democrats who work closely with the public employee unions.

But it does tell you that this could be a new rallying cry for Republicans to press their case that state government is too expensive and that the compensation for public employees is overly generous.

The unions have argued that workers have bargained to keep their relatively generous health benefits at the expense of salary increases.

Generally, voters have not shown themselve to be greatly concerned about public employee pay and benefits. The exception was the controversy over the state's expensive - and troubled - public employees retirement system in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2003, legislators pushed through a rewrite of PERS over the objections of the unions.

The question now is whether Maurer and other like-minded legislators can turn state employee health benefits into another PERS issue.

http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2008/06/gop_legislator_takes_on_public.html

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GOP legislator takes on public employee benefits