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Tell Governor Murphy You Can’t Afford a 20 Percent Increase for Your Health Plan!

August 22, 2022

We learned recently that the State of New Jersey wants to make hundreds of thousands of public-sector workers, including all Rutgers employees, pay 20 percent more for our health insurance starting in January 2023. This is not acceptable! We need to send a message to Governor Murphy right now: Can’t pay, WON’T PAY!

  • Call the Health Care Hotline that connects you to the governor’s office at 833-479-1993 and tell Governor Murphy: Don’t increase state workers’ health care contributions.
  • Join thousands of state workers in Trenton on Tuesday, September 13, for a mass union rally at the Statehouse Annex at 12 noon. Click here to let us know if you can come to Trenton or are interested in taking other action. Free buses are being arranged from across New Jersey; details to come.
  • Click here to tell us what action you’ll take against this unfair increase. We’ll be in touch with more details.

When the pandemic began in March 2020, COVID hit our region hard from the start: we lost loved ones, our schools and child care were shut down, we lost access to all but emergency health care. Meanwhile, many of us continued to go to work as essential employees, risking our own lives and those of our families.

The state saved nearly $200 million in health care costs in 2020, on top of over $100 million in savings in 2019, mostly because of good stewardship of the plan by our union representatives. Hospitals and Horizon BCBS received hundreds of millions in federal assistance to offset lost revenues during the pandemic. Yet now, the state government, Horizon, the hospitals, and the health care consultants say we need to pay 20 percent more for our health plan—because we got “too sick” and used “too much” health care over the past year after doctors and hospitals finally opened back up.

The state received billions in federal assistance to cover pandemic-related costs for New Jerseyans. There is still more than $1 billion left over from federal pandemic assistance and more than $7 billion in the state’s “rainy day fund.” Why won’t the state use this money to cover COVID-related health care costs? Why are they coming after us again?

We need to call Governor Murphy TODAY at 833-479-1993 and tell him that we didn’t cause the pandemic, we didn’t close hospitals and doctors’ offices, and we shouldn’t have to pay for something that’s beyond our control. Make plans to join other union workers from across the state in rallying at the Statehouse Annex in Trenton on Tuesday, September 13, at 12 noon.

Click here to tell us what action you will take to oppose this increase.

We can’t afford a 20 percent increase, and we won’t stand for it! Can’t Pay! WON’T PAY! Governor Murphy, our unions are waiting for your response.

In solidarity,
Becky and Todd

Rebecca Givan, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Todd Wolfson, General Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT

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