And these co-habitating individuals thought they were going to get a free ride at the same price, ha. I guess the insurance companies have the last word on that, now the tax payers will be forced to also pay more for this law. Co-habitation should be discouraged, not encouraged. This should also be an eye opener for those wanting to get socialized health care insurance. Having insurance will not decrease the health care costs or increase coverage, we will only feed another 3rd party expense in health care. The higher insurance premiums are not the cause of excessive health care costs, it's all coming from the providers. What government must and should be doing is limiting stockholders in HMO's, IHC's, and pharmecutials from overcharging and putting excessive cost on health care, to make sure investors can make a lot of money. Also insurance companies must not be able to deny claims. That is where health care reform and cost should be targeted, not on health care insurance premiums. Feeding insurance company's with premiums will only escalate heath care cost with no guarantee of coverage. Investors should be given controlled and limited returns on their investments.

You are not better off self insured. Before anyone goes that route check it out. When you are self insured, as we are, the insurance companies don't have to follow the same rules. We paid full premims (800 a month) for a year and had EVERY claim denied. We have always had insurance but this was our first experience self insured. When our year waiting period was up BCBS promptly sent us a notice saying they would no longer cover my husband who is a diabetic (under control without medicine) and also sent us a list of exemptions for the entire family. Everything anyone in my family has ever been to the Dr for is now exempted. Oh, the reason we paid $800. a month is because of the diabetes. Now that my husband is no longer insured and everything else has been exempted we ONLY pay $700. month. I'm grateful we can afford it for now but they still deny our claims and I have to spend hours working at getting them to pay anything. Think twice before you decide your company insuance isn't worth it.

This new plan makes perfectly good sense. The plan that Jenny Wilson has been pushing would allow employees to add their friends, siblings, and parents to the county's healthcare rolls, with the higher costs falling on all county employees. With this new plan, those friends, siblings, and parents who are added to the county's healthcare plan will get the coverage they need, albeit at their own expense. Unless you want something for free or have some other agenda, you should be happy.

Crockett, the tinman of Salt Lake County. If he only had a heart.