Hospital should provide affordable health plan  OlympiaMarch 25,
2013   The community endured a strike involving one of its major
medical facilities, but rest assured, there are no winners to be
found.  One would have figured that if the hospital can afford
to hire temporary workers and send mailings to their employees,
they could have used that money more wisely bringing it to the
bargaining table to lower the overpriced health insurance plan
they are pushing to implement on their employees.  One needs to
ask if the health care reform plan doesn’t go into effect until
2014, why are employers significantly raising health insurance
costs on their workers now? Why are these employers unable to
provide their employees affordable insurance when they’re self-
insured?  Some clinics in this county have had no rate increase
to their workers’ health insurance for three years, yet large
medical facilities that self-insure seem to have a difficult
time controlling their own costs.  Employees would like to spend
more in