Council Not Happy With Nutter's Attempt To Coax City Workers To Give Up Cigarettes
By Mike Dunn
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - The latest battle between Mayor Nutter and Council President Darrell Clarke involves the Mayor's new policy toward city workers who smoke.
The Nutter Administration two weeks ago announced that all non-unionized city workers next year will be placed in a new health care network made up of pharmacies that do not sell cigarettes. Anyone getting their medicine out of network will pay $15 extra. And any of these workers who smoke will pay $500 a year more in premiums.
This doesn't sit well with Council President Clarke, who feels that the workers -- which include city council staffers -- should have had a say in the change:
"When you're dealing with individuals' health care, I think there should be some level of input and participation by those employees before you change something as dramatic. There needs to a broader conversation about the level of health care and the various opportunities for those individuals' health care."
So Clarke is scheduling a hearing to grill the Administration on the new network and how the new policy affects workers. The Nutter Administration says the network includes pharmacies at CVS, Target and Wegmans, as well as about 135 independent pharmacies that also no longer sell cigarettes.
But Clarke says some workers will have a difficult time getting to a network pharmacy:
"There are broad portions throughout the city of Philadelphia where we don't have available the stores where you can actually get the prescriptions filled (in network) at a reasonable cost."
About 5,400 city workers and 900 retirees are affected by the mayor's changes, which go into effect on January 1st.
No date has yet been set for the hearing.
