Arron Williams will be holding the at large seat this time next year. Deal with it.

Nah, we don't need any stinkin' health care reform.

But a caveat: I've known Eric Turner for a long time. On and off the legislative floor. Bright he's not. He is fairly typical in that Gang of 150, tho. I've learned to look at anything he says skeptically. SOme of the things he's said from the podium have been outright ridiculous. Again–he's not alone, on both sides of the aisle.

Over the weekend, as part of that research, I asked two friends, who have good and excellent company-subsidized insurance, to give me a quick rundown on their insurance packages.

Friend A works for a small business (40 employees) for over ten years. He's their CFO, so his answers were much more exact. He is in charge of his company's insurance package and bidding each year.

He has a family of four…two kids in college. He pays $490 a month for basic catastrophic coverage—his choice. He pays out of pocket for anything under $5,000 per person. That means he gambles every year with up to $16,000 of personal medical expense liability. He pays another $233 a month for family dental, which he said was “borderline worthwhile” because of what it covers–he'll surely drop it once his kids get their own degrees and jobs. His company pays about $1200 monthly for his family's policy. The company portion has risen proportionately with the employee share 45% since 2004. It is with Anthem-Wellpointe. For the prior six years, the total insurance cost rose a collective 15%. Total cost to his company and family per month: almost $1700 for medical, which pays for nothing under $5000, and the extra dental. (Pascal, that's almost $20,400 for a family of four, without dental, for a catastrophic-only policy) The reason the policy is so expensive, he note,d was that the company's claim history included four long-term cancer patients in the last five years. God forbid anyone should get SICK while they have insurance.

His company's insurance choices include a much more expensive lower deductible plan. He said only four or five persons could, afford it any more. And last year when he put that plan out for bid, he had only two others willing to bid, both comparably priced.

Friend B works for a large locally-based pharma company–you do the math. He get fantastic prescription benefits–as in free–if the drug is company-manufactured. He is an empty-nester, widower, and pays $405 a month for Cadillac benefits. He was not exact about the company's share, but he thought it was around $600. That's over a thousand a month for a great plan, one person. He said his cost of the plan had doubled in three years.

My guess is the $29K Marion figure includes the most-expensive options available, and contributions to teacher retirement funds (total benefit cost). But I will check it out.

It behooves all of us to ask around and get educated. I was shocked at the number of people at a Super Bowl party did not know their company's share of health care costs.

I will gladly report back after my Marion/Turner research. If wrong, I'll gladly eat my words, Pascal.