By Sean Spiller

Earlier this week the state released a ‘death spiral’ report regarding the state health benefit plans that provide health insurance to hundreds of thousands of state employees and retirees. The report stipulates radical reforms are needed - including possibly dismantling the state plans in the long run and in the short run making public employees pay more out of pocket.

For those who depend on state health care plans, the idea that they should pay more out of pocket is as insulting as it is untenable. Cost shifting does nothing to solve the underlying challenges in our healthcare system. And asking public sector employees to pay more while the insurance companies and hospitals make millions of dollars is a non-starter for me.

If cost shifting doesn’t work, the report even suggests that maybe these state plans should be dismantled. That would leave school districts, our county, state and local governments to figure out health benefits on the private market.

So let’s be clear what our elected officials are offering - we pay more in the state plans or we become subject to the profiteering brokers and insurance companies on the private market where I am quite sure we will pay more there too.

As a union leader I have done the work to develop healthcare plans that have saved the employer and employee hundreds of millions of dollars. I know it is possible because I have done it. In designing these solutions we did not ask employees to pay more - we found cost saving measures within the network of care and service. It was a win-win-win. Right now we have a stack of recommendations the state has declined to act on to increase cost savings rather than shift the burden. We did it before and can do it again.

So how did we get here?

The answer is tragically simple. Politics and money. This is what I have been talking about on the campaign trail since day one. The people in power raise a lot of money to get elected - money from those who then have access and influence in government. Those who protect their own interests over the interests and needs of people like you and me.

That is why my campaign is proud to be transparently funded by small dollar donors of educators and other hard working people of New Jersey - those that I am running to represent. We have not accepted corporate PAC dollars, we are not funded by wealthy developers and real estate moguls. No Kushner or Musk money. No Wall Street financiers.

That is true as well for the independent expenditure that supports our campaign. Working New Jersey is funded by the NJEA - a union that through a democratic process elected to invest in this election precisely because we know that critical issues like health benefits hang in the balance.

The same cannot be said about my opponents - they have taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars from the uber wealthy and special interests into their campaign accounts. We already know that and it should make everyone suspect of whom they will be beholden to in an elected office.

And the independent expenditures supporting them - who knows, because they are not required to disclose their donors until 11 days before the election. That’s when we will know who else they will be beholden to. Too late for the nearly 200,000 people who have already voted.

So, as we see the dangerous impact of the outsized influence of the healthcare sector on our government - the insurance companies and brokers and hospital conglomerates - let me reiterate our demand of all candidates in this race #showusthemoney. Demand that the independent expenditures supporting your campaign reveal their donors today. Do it now. Voters deserve to know.

And I suggest every public employee gets a clear answer from all candidates on where they stand on the state health benefits plans.

Let me be clear here as to my position. As Governor I will stabilize and strengthen our state health plans so all public employees know they have affordable, high quality healthcare accessible for themselves and their families. I will demand transparency of hospital pricing including in the contracts with the insurance companies that hold state contracts. I will do what other states have done to control costs including setting cost benchmarks and introducing reference based pricing. I will reign in the brokers profiting at tax payers expense. And I will always fight for healthcare as a right, not a privilege.
I am the candidate who you can know is ready for this fight because I am not beholden to the special interests funding my opponents and because I have fought this fight before - and won.

President of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), Sean Spiller is a candidate for Governor in the Democratic Primary.