Speaker 1: What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to
this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon
to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you
want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream,
my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron,
go to thepeteclendershow dot com. Make sure you hit the
subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your
smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. I want to welcome back to the program
artist Watkins, who is the executive director of the se
A n C, which is the State employees Association in
North Carolina. Welcome back, artists. How are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing well. I hope you are.
Speaker 1: I'm doing well as well. So you've got the legislative
session kicking off in Raleigh, and so I guess the
first thing, what is the the se A n C.
What are you guys looking at for like legislative priority
going into the session?
Speaker 2: Sure we and we pronounce it SCENIC for whatever reason.
Over the years, for whatever the reason, the group has
pronounced that Scenic and Scenic's goals are always to make
sure pay healthcare benefits, the things that matter to every
other working person out there are the things that matter
to our members.
Speaker 1: And so one of those are our legislative I'm.
Speaker 2: Sorry, said, so those are always going to be our
legislative goals.
Speaker 1: Gotcha. And so what's the landscape look like going into
the session regarding those goals.
Speaker 2: Well, I'll tell you, you know, it's going to be a
difficult year for everyone. And part of that is obviously
the tragedy we had with Helene is affecting, you know,
not just all of our citizens out there and trying
to make sure their lives get put back together to
the best degree we can. But there's also a lot
of revenue that's not going to come in from those
counties that they lost because they lost everything. So that's
going to have a lingering effect on the budget. But
there are things that can be done and that's what
we're very focused on, and healthcare is where we think
a lot of those things are.
Speaker 1: So the other day I saw WRL had the report.
I guess it came out of the State Board of Education.
One of the members on the State Board of Education
is the state Treasurer, Brad Briner, who said that the
state health Plan, which is overseen by the Treasurer's office
is looking at a half a billion dollar deficit, and
that is even after there was money put into it
by the General Assembly to help shore it up. But
that's not going to be enough going forward. And his predecessor,
Dale Folwell talked about this as well. And so Briner
has floated this idea essentially a means test, right that
the more you make, uh, then the more you would
pay for your health benefits. Is that is that? Am
I understanding that correctly?
Speaker 2: That's that's what I understood from the article. And certainly
you know, Treasure Brinner has been good enough to be
in communication with us, and he seems like a nice man.
But I will say this is this is kind of
a usual exp what I would expect someone to do.
Things are. You know, there's a deficit that we need
to fix, so we're going to go to working people
to fix it and not go to secret contracts corporations have.
And that's that's the situation with the health plan. That's
what Treasure of Fallwell had tried to highlight, right with.
Speaker 1: His clear pricing, uh, his clear pricing initiative. Yeah, that
got a lot of pushback from the hospital industry. So
when you're when you're when you say secret contracts, you're
talking about like the blue Cross Blue Shield stuff that
like uh, Fallwell couldn't get prices is for various surgeries
and treatments at various places around the state.
Speaker 2: Right, and again, I think Treasure Briner seems like a
nice man. However, if he's not insisting to see what
he's paying with taxpayer money to healthcare providers, because that's
being negotiated by an insurance company, but it's taxpayer money
being spent. If he can't see where he's spending it,
how in the world does he know he needs to
jack up premiums on working people. And so we got
a problem with that. This isn't a state employee issue.
This is an American issue. You know, we talk about
the swamp in DC and healthcare spending on federal lobbyists
grew seventy percent over the last twenty years. And part
of what's been delivered is there is complete secrecy over
most of this pricing. And as Treasure of Fallwell used
to point out, we would never accept that if we
went to the grocery store cash register having no idea
what the groceries were going to cost.
Speaker 1: So according to this article, though, it says that state
workers who ensure only themselves can pay as little as
twenty five dollars a month for healthcare. Is that is
how accurate? Is that is that figure? And who does
that cover? Because twenty I think to a lot of listeners,
they may hear twenty five dollars a month for your
health insurance. That's really a great deal.
Speaker 2: So two things about that. Yeah, number one is true.
Number one, and the reason it historically was true. It
used to be premium free for years and years, and
the goal was because we pay so much less to
state employees than they would make in the same job
in the private sector. The way you kind of sold
people on state government was pays not great, You're never
going to get rich, but your benefits will be decent.
And over the years that has diminished, managed diminished. But
that's true for the state employee. What the state doesn't
do is pay anything on the dependent coverage. So people's children,
you know, are costing them sometimes seven and eighty dollars
a month. So if you're talking about someone in law enforcement,
somebody teaching, somebody you know working on school buses, that
might be one week's pay of the month to cover
their dependent coverage. And that's that's not sustainable. But that's
the reality we're in North Carolina. For everybody in the state.
We're ranked highest in the nation in terms of her
health care costs, but we're ranked third from worst in
health care outcomes. We have a problem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look, yeah, I agree with you. The health insurance system,
the way it's set up in this state is it
is not optimal, to say the.
Speaker 2: Least, right, But so the reason the premium is relatively
low is that there is nothing towards the dependent coverage
and the soal are so much lower than they would
make in the private sector. So it's a it's not
a gift, it's a benefit of employment to try to
get people and we are in a staffing vacancy crisis
right now.
Speaker 1: Well look, yeah, I've said the same that you just
laid out that that has always been sort of the
deal that if you go to work in the public sector,
the painting is not as high as the private sector,
but you get the better benefits, you get the pension,
you get an earlier retirement, and it's secure. I can
tell you just from a personal experience like the pension
program when I first started working for a company, Jefferson Pilot.
They no longer exist. Neither does the pension right, so
that that went away. The private sector pensions, they're all
gone and you don't get those nowadays. And health insurance
for just me is about what what the dependent coverage
would be under that seven hundred eighty dollars a month.
That's what I'm paying just for me, so right, And
I don't make a ton more than, like than an
average state employee. So when I hear means.
Speaker 2: It's your company, but your company probably doesn't have ten
percent of the market of healthcare.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, No, absolutely no. And I'm not saying
that that that the public sector should get that same
high rate. I'm not saying that at all. I definitely
agree that there should be a trade off if the
pay is generally lower. That's why so I'm asking about
the means test as a general concept, because you and
I both know there are people that work in state
government that get paid a lot of money right at
the upper end, and so should they not be paying
more than twenty five dollars a month if it's just them.
Speaker 2: Here's my response to that, yeah, we only know. Again,
these are secret contracts. The only thing we do know
is the range of what people get paid. Some hospitals
are making eight hundred percent plus reimbursement compared to Medicare.
Some are making as low as ninety percent. So why
are we not worried that we're paying some eight hundred
percent and some ninety percent? We're worried about a state employee.
Speaker 1: No, I can be worried about both. Yeah, I don't
see it as a choice. I can be worried about
both because a lot of times we're not.
Speaker 2: Right now, we're not worried about.
Speaker 1: Both because I agree, Yeah, I agree. That's why I was.
I was a backer of Folwell's clear pricing plan. I
picked my own doctors based on the fact that they
were on board with that. With that plan too, I
want all of that as well. But I see that
as yes, related, But I don't have to pick one
or the other issue. Yeah, right, so the concept, Yeah.
Speaker 2: But see, the political game is to get us to say, yeah,
that makes sense. Nothing makes sense right now. Increasing anything
for anyone does not make sense until you put all
the facts on the table. And I know the state
auditor was on your show not long as ye. Yeah,
talking about hey, we need to know what we're paying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you is to look at.
Speaker 2: These state contracts, And I thought, well, good, and I
really hope not only that he looks at these contracts,
but that the public then we can get the law
change where the public chan because it is my sincere
belief you don't have to jack up prices on anybody
if you get that under control.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, look, and on that, I agree, because the
private sector payers have been getting it jacked up every
single year because we can't we don't know the prices
either because all of the subsidization that's occurring, a lot
of it is occurring in the private sector. They're they're
they're juicing us to pay for expansion of various programs.
So look, I'm with you on that. Yeah, I'm with
you on that, Artist Watkins. I do appreciate your time today.
You're welcome back anytime. Artist Watkins is the executive director
of SCENIC, the State Employees Association of North Carolina. Thanks
so much for your time.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Pete.
Speaker 1: All right, take care. Here's a great idea. How about
making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway
in Western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the
mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. Whether you're
celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan
a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for
a big old reunion, Cabins of Ashville has the ideal
spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved
ones and the things that truly matter. Nestled within the
breath taking fourteen thousand acres of the Pisga National Forest,
their cabins offer a serene escape in the heart of
the Blue Ridge Mountains. Centrally located between Asheville and the
entrance of the Great Smoky Mountain National Park. It's the
perfect balance of seclusion and proximity to all the local
attractions with hot tubs, fireplaces, air conditioning, smart TVs, Wi Fi, grills,
outdoor tables, and your own private covered porch. Choose from
thirteen cabins, six cottages, two villas, and a great lodge
with eleven king sized bedrooms. Cabins of Ashville has the
ideal spot for you for any occasion, and they have
pet friendly accommodations. Call or text eight two eight, three
six seven seventy sixty eight, or check out all there
is to offer at cabins Offashville dot com and make
memories that'll last a lifetime. Let us Ham and Tomato
go to the phones. Here is Chris, Welcome to the program.
Speaker 3: Hello Chris, Hello Skinny Pete, what's up buddy?
Speaker 1: Hey Man? Oh you know it's Friday. That's half the battle.
Speaker 3: Amen, Sarah, it's been a great week. Been really enjoying
the Spotify podcast version of your show. I hate to
blow that up for the radio people, but man, it's
really clean. Nice way to listen to you. Thank you,
miss show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I appreciate it. We do a lot. John
Moore does a lot of work to edit that stuff
down and just give you the best of me, which
is basically the whole show minus commercials.
Speaker 3: It's great. It's great, it's great stuff. I'm a fan. So, dude,
I am beside myself with health coverage this year. My
wife and I have finally decided they were going to
go up on us another thirty percent. Between my wife
and I were both fairly healthy people. I don't have
any of these prescriptions that costs like godly amounts of
month every month or any of these no like known illnesses,
and between the two of us are playing of thousand
dollars a month with a fifteen thousand dollars deductible. So
we're spending twenty five thirty thousand dollars a year for
insurance before we're actually getting insurance. And what we have.
Speaker 1: This same what is your well, I'm sorry, what was
your deductible?
Speaker 3: Fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: And that's for both of you combined, So you're responsible
for the first first fifteen.
Speaker 3: K and one thousand dollars a month payment and that
was with CBS Etna. Yeah, that was the plan provider.
So we're just like beside ourselves, going, what do we get, Like,
why don't we just send that much money to our
doctor and dentist every month and we'll just get this
big giant pile of cash built up and then at
the end of the year, what we do know we
can get back what we don't use or and we've
talked to our agents and and because this isn't insurance anymore,
I mean we keep calling it insurance, it's not. It's
pre pre existing conditions don't matter, so you can get
into your accident and then get insurance afterwards. And that's
exactly how the system set up. They have an emergency
plan that they can get inacted within either twelve or
twenty hours or something. So we're going to roll the
dice and hope that, you know, we don't get a
leg cut off or something crazy. That the first initial
surgery had to be done right away and it costs
a ton of money. But we can just get up
on a plan as soon as one of us gets
diagnosed with our cancer or you know whatever illness, and okay,
it looks like we need to go get insurance now.
So that's how we're going to be doing this, pushing forward.
I would love to have somebody that works if I'm
paying all these people's salaries to go and lobby for
better insurance for state employee government. And it's like, where's
the lobbyists for the individuals that are just like me
who have been self employed their entire life, never got
to pay day off, never got to debate doctor visit
all these benefits. And I'm tired of being told that
the government sector is getting less salary than the private
It's just not true anymore. I mean, you have to
go down to the most lowest level jobs to even
fight any truth to But we just fired the county
manager here in North on Concord and he was at
five hundred thousand dollars a year with five hundred thousand
dollars severance packages and bonuses of thirty thousand dollars. And
I mean, the list just goes on and on and on,
and they get all of these paid days off and
seventh bereavement, two weeks, paid day, personal holiday, your birthday,
just pick a day. It's Chris Cranston holiday. You know.
It's just I can't take it anymore. I need somebody
to fight for me.
Speaker 1: Those are supposed to be the elected representatives, right, That's
who is supposed to be our voice. And so what
people need to do is to outline that case that
you just made to the elected representatives yourself. That's and
I know that's difficult. It takes time. You got a
volunteer to do the work. You're not going to get
paid for it. I get it. I know it's tough.
That's why I bring the issues up, and that's why
I pushed back on artist Watkins there about this the
concept of means testing because I don't have to pick
one or the other, like clear pricing. Yeah, I want
to know what the state health plan is covering for
with these hospitals, what the procedures are. We need to
know what those prices are. And the treasurer, as the
one who administers the program, the health plan, he needs
to know too. That being said, I find it difficult
to justify if I am a single guy and I
am a county manager somewhere, or I work for the
state and I'm a state employee. I'm on the state
health plan. I'm single and I have no kids, no dependents,
and I am making half a million dollars a year.
Why I'm only paying twenty five dollars a month for
my health insurance? That to me is a different question
than the state health plan. But Chris, I appreciate the call, buddy,
Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, sir.
Speaker 1: I'm man take it easy, all right. I hope you
had a happy holiday season. But tell me if something
like this happened at your house. Your family and friends
are gathered around, Maybe y'all are in the living room,
You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and then somebody says, hey, Dad,
remember those old VHS tapes did you ever get transferred?
And then the room gets all quiet. All eyes are
on Dad, who says, oh, you know, well, I've been
meaning to but I just having gotten around to it. Look,
don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for
another year, all right. Create a Video has been helping
families in the Charlotte area preserve their history since nineteen
ninety seven. Simply bring in your old camquarder tapes and
Creative Video will transfer them to a USB flash drive
for just fourteen ninety five per tape. You have a
big collection, They've got a discount for you. And next year,
instead of talking about those memories, imagine gathering the family
to watch them together. Talk about a memorable gift. So
do what I did. Trust the experts at Creative Video,
conveniently located in mint Hill right off I four eighty
five and online at create avideo dot com. Got a
couple of emails here regarding the topic we were covering
with the executive director of the State Employees Association of
North Carolina, which is basically the union, but don't call
it a union because we don't have unions. We don't
have collective bargaining rights. In North Carolina, but there are unions, Okay,
So she was talking about how there's this proposal, and
first let me start it with the right up here
at wr L. Brad Briner, who is the new state treasurer,
took over after Dale Folwell ran for governor lost in
the primary. So Dale is no longer there. Brad Briner
has taken over and he told the state Board of
Education last week that there is a half a billion
dollar deficit in the state health plan and one of
the things that he has proposed, but he says in
this article that he said it's a you know, the
issue is very important and he wants suggestions on what
to do. Right, So that's the point of raising this issue.
He says, it's not imperative for twenty five, but looking
forward to twenty twenty six, this is something that's got
to be addressed. So what are people's ideas on how
to address it? And artist Watkins, you know, pointed out
that you've got these you got the health industry, the
healthcare industry that contray that negotiates basically with the hospitals
right through this insurance middleman. The state is hiring the middleman,
but the middleman won't tell the state what the prices are,
and the state can't get the prices from the healthcare
industry either. So that's why Dale Folwell was like, you
would not buy your service if you don't know what
the price is, and so I want to know what
the prices are, and they were like no, And then
he did a Freedom of Information Act request, got that
information from finally got it from him from the industry
and it was all redacted. They'd blacked out, like all
of the pages of their prices. They refuse to tell
people what they are charging for these various procedures you
could get. I remember Dale saying like, if you go
and get a knee replacement and you get it done
in Charlotte versus Ashville versus Wilmington versus Raleigh, it's going
to cost different no matter where you go, and there's
no rationale for it, and the prices are wildly different.
So why are they charging the prices that they're charging
and what are those prices? We don't know. I agree
with all of that effort. It is it is corrupt, Okay,
it is completely corrupt. The fact that I, as a
client don't know what I'm paying for is corrupt. This
became very clear to me long before Obamacare came in
and threw all the markets out of whack. And that's
what we're still dealing with. Thanks again, John McCain, keeping
this Leviathan in place entrenched. Right, the system has been
corrupted and broken, and it has been that has been
done on purpose. The point is to break it. The
point is to break it because if you break it,
then you can offer quote the solution, and the solution
much like the Aztec analogy I gave the other day,
where you know, you sacrifice twenty five babies to make
it rain and it doesn't rain. And rather than saying, hey,
maybe we shouldn't be sacrificing babies because it's not related. No, no,
they say, let's sacrifice more babies. We didn't do enough. Right,
that's the solution that will be offered. More government, more
of the things that are breaking the system and creating
this middleman between you and your doctor. And I became
aware of this when I first got my very first HSA,
when we were allowed to finally have an HSA, I
got one. I go into the doctor's office and the
first experience was about a tetnis shot, and he offers,
you want to get a tennis shot? And I said, well,
how much is it? And he said, I don't know.
Like that's a problem. That is a huge problem. You're
selling me something and you don't even know what the
price is. Well, your insurance will cover it. I said, well,
I have an HSA, so I'm paying for it, so
I want to know what the price is. And when
he came back and told me, and this was twenty
years ago, he comes back and says the price is
like almost eighty dollars. And he's like, yeah, just wait
till you step on a rusty nail or something. It's
not required, but when something is quote free, then people
will do it. So was that tennis shot actually worth
eighty dollars or is that just something that the doctors
throw out there. They don't know the price of it.
They ask you if you want it, you say, sure,
I'll get it, just to be safe. Can't be too safe,
of course, and then the insurance company and the provider
they hammer out whatever money needs to be paid for that,
and they're charging the insurance company eighty dollars and the
insurance company will say, oh, we're not paying that we'll
only pay you seventy Okay, fine, and the SHOT's only
like ten. That is not clear pricing. But again that
is a separate issue than the health plan and what
employees are being charged the health plan. If you are
a worker right now and you don't have any dependence,
you could be paying twenty five dollars a month. That's
a great deal. And this is one of the things
that I just caution people who work for the state
or on the state health plan or advocates for it,
you have to understand who you're talking to that if
you're talking to people in the private sector, a twenty
five dollars a month health insurance premium is like a
freaking unicorn. They have never had that. We have never
had it, never seen it. Wouldn't know what to do
with all that extra money every single month. So that's
all I'm saying is, please be aware that that is
a really great deal. And if you are making a
quarter of a million dollars working for the state, you
getting a twenty five dollars health insurance premium is a
kind of bitter pill to swallow as the one who's
paying for that, Because I am right, there are taxpayers
and tax consumers. People who work for government in the
public sector, that is a consumption of the tax dollar.
The people who are in the private sector are the
creators of it. I'm not saying I'm not denigrading anybody
for it. I am a believer in the need for
these services and people to perform them. But when I'm
the one that's paying into the system, paying the money
that's then getting deducted out of the paycheck, you know,
for the health the state health plan, Like I'm the
one paying that, you're taking the money home what's left
over after the premiums. But I'm the one paying that.
The private sector is the one paying that. So just
keep that in mind when making these arguments. It may
be more successful. All Right. If you're listening to this show,
you know I try to keep up with all sorts
of current events, and I know you do too, And
you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why. Well,
because it's how you detect media bias, which is why
I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app
and it's a website, and it combines news from around
the world in one place, so you can compare coverage
and verify information. You can check it out at check
dot ground, dot news, slash pete. I put the link
in the podcast description too. I started using ground News
a few months ago and more recently chose to work
with them as an affiliate because it lets me see
clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind
spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the
left and the right. See for yourself check dot ground,
dot news, slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll
get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage
plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription
then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports
Groundnews as they make the media landscape more transparent. President
Donald Trump is in Swanna, Noah, which is a town
just outside of Ashville, right off I forty when you're
going up from Charlotte, you'll pass it on the on
the right basically past old Ford and so it's going
on now live. He's got some people that are that were,
you know, victims of the of the flooding from Swana Noah.
And it looks like he's engaging in like a Q
and A with them at a microphone. I do have
a feed of this, but we've missed Trump's actual opening comments,
and so what I think I'm gonna do is in
the next hour, I think I'm going to go back
to the c Span feed and I'm just going to
start it from the beginning, so we can hear Trump's
comments from the beginning. I believe he is now because
at the beginning, I believe he said something on the
order of looking to overhaul or scrap FEMA in some way.
So all right, we'll get to that in the next hour.
Let me get to the emails that I said I
would read and then I didn't because apparently I am
a liar. I will no sae. I'm reading them now,
so I wasn't lying. This is from Tim. Tim says,
I'm sick and tired of public sector employees whining about
having to pay for their families portion of so called
health insurance quote unquote. Join the rest of the real world,
and you will see exactly what things really cost. Like
my family of two has a you know, quote insurance policy,
and that policy costs twenty two thousand dollars a year
with a nine thousand dollars deductible. But you mostly won't
because you the public sector are just spoiled, Brad to
bring on the blowback. Okay, so right, Tim, Look, this
is like anything else. Nobody wants their costs to go
up on anything, on anything, rent groceries, right, this is
health insurance, auto insurance, home insurance. Nobody wants their cost
to go up. But this is something that has been
occurring in the private sector for my entire life. And
you know, you can trace it back to government policies
and spending and inflation. Right. There are a lot of
different factors involved here. You know, the the intervention of
the government into the medical marketplace, and then you've got
the you know, monopolistic health providers, healthcare providers that enjoy
these you know, privileged positions protected by the government. It's
a cartel. And no better example of it is than
North Carolina's own Certificate of Need program, right where the
government decides based on basically existing healthcare lobbyist pressure as
to whether or not another facility can open near some
population center. And so the government has to write up
a certificate of need because the government's going to decide
whether there's a need for this or not. Get the
hell out of the way. If a health company wants
to open up an MRI center someplace, or a colonoscopy
center and they go out of business because there wasn't
enough demand in that area. Then let them go out
of business. It's their decision to do it. They shouldn't
have to go to the government. And then the government
say we think there's enough of a demand here, after
we've held public hearings and randos show up to say
I don't think we need colonoscopies here. Well, what the
hell do you know. You don't know anything, you're not
an expert, you haven't done any kind of market research. Please,
it's all just covered to stifle competition. It needs to go.
That's one element of this. The other element is the
pricing secrecy that these health insurance companies and the healthcare
providers they will not give the pricing on this stuff,
and then they argue back and forth. I went over
all of this already, so I won't revisit it. But
let me go over here to Phillip, who says, Happy Friday.
Oh wait, oh, sorry, that's that's about the Trump visit.
I'll read that next hour. Matthew says, Charlotte did away
with all health care for anybody who retires from employment.
As of two thousand and nine, that's your police, fire,
water department, and so on. Recently, the state did away
with their health care for their retirees. Also, well, there
is healthcare. It's Medicare like everybody else. So once again,
like you're that's the pension that you're talking about, right,
It's essentially a pension. It's not like payment for salary,
but it you have this health insurance that lasts through
your entire retirement. But Medicare is already there. Medicare is
people are forced into the Medicare system when they turn
fifty five. And so I don't know, shouldn't give you
Does that makes sense that everybody goes into Medicare. We're
all in the same boat now, troopers, teachers, and so on.
That's why the state and city are in an employment crisis.
No money, no benefits at the end. Why not work
for the private sector at this point? No, it's a
good question. Why not work for the private sector? All right,
that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening. I could not do the show without your
support and the support of the businesses that advertise on
the podcast. So if you'd like, please support them too
and tell them you heard it here. You can also
become a patron at my patreon page or go to
thepetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening,
and don't break anything while I'm gone.