CWA Statement on Plan Design Committee Proposals: “It’s All Cost-Shifting to Workers and Erosion of the Benefits Plans”

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 1, 2025
Contact: Anna-Marta Visky, Political & Field Director | [email protected] | 347-574-5665

CWA Statement on Plan Design Committee Proposals: “It’s All Cost-Shifting to Workers and Erosion of the Benefits Plans”

TRENTON, NJ - Today, the Plan Design Commission, the statutory advisory body overseeing and managing the details of the State Health Benefits Plan covering over 100,000 workers, retirees, and their family-members, released their proposals under the State’s FY2026 budget requirement.

The dramatic cost increases include:

• Higher copays across the board for prescription medication
• Higher copays for retail 30-day supply and mail order medication
• Higher copays for Emergency Room and Urgent Care visits
• Higher out-of-pocket costs and workers paying a larger portion of costs
• Limiting the number of visits per year, and limiting other care options
• New requirements for additional costs placed on members whose spouse is covered on their plan if the spouse has access to healthcare through their own employer

Billy Gallagher, CWA District 1 Assistant to the Vice President, released the following statement:

Outrageous and unacceptable. We’re repeating ourselves at this point with each new update coming out of the State that continues to demonstrate the State’s unwillingness to truly address this crisis, but we’ll keep saying it until the Legislature comes to the table ready to work with us and fix this.

For years this Administration, like the Administration before it, has made cuts on our members’ backs and asked the very workers who keep this state open and running to sacrifice, to cut back more and more. ‘We need to cut costs from the Plan,’ we’re told. Rates have gone up 40 percent to 60 percent over the past three years, and just a few weeks ago the State Health Benefits Commission announced another staggering hike of 19 percent for State workers and an unconscionable 37 percent for local government workers. This is shameful. It’s a blight on this state.

Meanwhile, CWA and our coalition of unions representing public workers have come with solid plans and legislative solutions—like A5903, the Public Sector Healthcare Affordability and Responsible Governance Act—to tackle healthcare affordability and stop this runaway rate hike train. The response from NJ Assembly leadership? Pull A5903 from the Committee and floor calendar and stall on scheduling an August session to move the bill forward.

And today the State’s Plan Design Committee makes a further announcement that boils down to: ‘Higher. Higher. Higher.’ Higher copays, higher out-of-pocket costs, higher costs for workers with spouses covered on their plan—and do these higher costs come with better or more expansive care? NO. Cuts to care and cuts to services, while our members shoulder more of the costs and this crisis just grows deeper.

There are solutions here, but our elected leaders must be willing to act. There are over 400,000 voters covered by the State Health Benefits Plan and healthcare is going to be a major concern as they submit their ballots or head to the ballot box this fall. We cannot afford continued stalling and delaying here. Assembly leadership must do their jobs, stick to their commitments to fight for New Jersey’s working families, and get a date on the books for an August session to move A5903.