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Angry teachers, public employees object to proposed PEIA benefits cuts

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Dale Lee (WVEA); Fred Albert (AFT-WV in Kanawha County); Linda Thompson (WV School Service Personnel Association)

Excerpt

Weary of seeing their health insurance benefits cut a little more each year, teachers, public employees and retirees turned out in Charleston Wednesday evening to tell the Public Employees Insurance Agency Finance Board that “enough is enough.”

“It’s time that we as public employees, as educators in West Virginia, unite and say, we’re not going to take this anymore,” West Virginia Education Association President Dale Lee said at the last of five public hearings on the latest proposed cuts in PEIA coverage.

Many speakers Wednesday said the proposal to shrink PEIA’s salary-based premium scale from 10 tiers to three, and to change family coverage from a flat rate to a pay-by-person charge will hurt young teachers and public employees at the bottom of already low salary scales.