Saying Starbucks workers get better health benefits, three state employees delivered 3,000 petition signatures to legislative leaders Wednesday in support of lower insurance premiums.
“If baristas can make better health insurance than state troopers, that’s just criminal,” Lori Ganni told House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald during a morning meeting.
Ganni, who works for the Department of Labor and Employment, and two other state workers delivered the pile of petitions that Colorado Association of Public Employees gathered.
This year’s budget proposes increasing the state’s contribution to employee health plans by 10 percent, but Fitz-Gerald and Roman off agreed the state needs to try to do more.
“It used to be the state employee benefits package was so good it made up for the low pay,” Fitz-Gerald said.
According to CAPE, Colorado ranks 49th out of 50 states when it comes to the amount the state contributes to individual health coverage for its employees.
A survey by the National Conference of State Legislatures shows Colorado state employees paid $362.46 a month for family coverage last year, nearly double the national average.
Colorado based its 2006 contributions on an amount equal to about 75 percent of what the average business pays to cover its employees. The proposed budget for next year would increase that to 85 percent, but state employees want lawmakers to bring it up to the business average.
Deanna Cowles, a Colorado Department of Transportation worker, said she is a single mother who can barely afford catastrophic coverage for her family, which means she has deductibles of more than $3,000 for herself and each of her children.
Now, when there is something wrong with her kids, she says, “It’s come down to how bad are you.”
Ganni said that for years she was unable to afford health insurance. She finally made enough money to cover her family, but recently dropped her daughter from the plan because the youth receives better coverage from her part-time job at Starbucks.
“At 17 she got a job at Starbucks, where she gets health insurance for $66 a month with a $10 co-pay,” she said.
“That was a great help to us because I could pay that for her and drop her from my insurance.”
Capitol bureau chief Jeri Clausing can be reached at 303-954-1555 or jclausing@denverpost.com.
