More from Jason Barickman! Finally a politician that will answer questions!

So after Jason sent out his weekly email on 4/17/2011, I asked him the following:

I don't know much about the "Health Alliance contract." Can you tell me more about it?

Also, I strongly agree that, "if more employees made quarterly payments - rather than having their money automatically deducted from their payroll check before they "see" it - then we'd have more people arguing for lower taxes in Springfield and Washington".  Seems unlikely that we would move in that direction. Any alternatives?

He responded to the first question, but didn't mention anything about alternative methods of collection income taxes.  Here is his response:

The Quinn Administration terminated an HMO contract that effectively requires 100,000 state employees to change from an HMO plan to an Open Access Plan.  While devastating to thousands of state employees, it's also going to cost the taxpayers upwards of $40 million.  I can't believe the Guv is making this decision, impacting these people's lives in such a dramatic way, and costing us all more money.  I'm obviously opposed to it...

Thanks for the note!

 It's great to have a representative that actually responds to questions.  With my sincere hope of better understanding the issues, I replied once again:

Why is switching from an HMO to an Open Access Plan devastating and dramatic? How did you calculate the $40 million cost?

I will let you know Jason's response when I get it.