MIDDLETOWN — Township officials decided not to appeal a judge’s ruling ordering the town to hand over basic information about town employees coverage by taxpayer-supported health insurance benefits. Resident and plaintiff Lee Brewer received that information Thursday, attorneys said.
Brewer likely will use the 15 pages of emailed information to determine if there are employees who aren’t entitled to municipal health coverage, said Walter Luers, Brewer’s attorney and president of the New Jersey Foundation of Open Government.
“He will probably read it and see if anyone is getting benefits who shouldn’t,” Luers said.
A Jan. 7 ruling by state Superior Court Judge Lawrence Lawson said the township had to turn over the information, which officials had denied to Brewer, fearing that doing so would violate the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
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I sent an email to Brewer earlier asking him if he had had time to go over the documents that the township had sent him and I have not heard from him as of yet. If I do hear from him I'll pass along what I find out regardless of whether or not any inappropriate names appear on the documents provided.
Honestly, I'm hoping that Brewer doesn't find anyone's name on the documents provided that shouldn't be there. I'll be very disappointed to find out that my tax dollars are going to provide health coverage to some lobbyist, lawyer or contractor that has no right to receive them.
If that turns out to be the case then there will be holly hell to pay to someone.
12 comments:
Perhaps I'm gullible but I sure hope not. Thus far I've found your Governor to be direct and more forthcoming than most past Governors being accused of a wide range of wrong doings.
I live in Massachusetts and we've had our fair share of corruption. Based on my experience I would say that Christie is either honest or incredibly naïve. I mean who would have a two hour press conference, lie to the good people of NJ and the nation, and think he wouldn't get caught. Time will tell, it always does.
Adam
Boston, MA
He has lied to us before and will probably do so again.
? what does the governor have to do with the request for insurance information in Middletown ?
Know we are dealing with those here that have trouble with the truth but this post does not involve our governor...at least not yet !!
So ????
FYI, the info requested is public under "common law right of access", not per the Open Public Records Act. An OPRA request can be denied. Just an FYI to anyone who may wish to request similar info from Middletown or any other governmental entity.
believe the chap from Massachusetts is posting an opinion that has nothing to do with the subject matter of this post. This post has nothing to do with the governor of the state of N.J..
Didn't Mike recently advise to keep comments on SUBJECT??
Sorry folks, my comment was in response to a different post. My apologies and best to you all.
Adam, the chap in MA
I would like Christie as much as "Brooksy" if I didn't live in NJ too.
"Ignorance is BLISS!"
Why aren't these names published on a website or by the APP, as Susan Oneal's emails answering questions posed by a taxpaying citizen were...????
This seems a little hypocritical, no?
Linda,
So what your saying is the names on the list are for everyone to see, just like your emails?
Wasn't Luers the guy who tried to say that only certain information is PUBLIC???
Didn't N.J. pass legislation in the recent past regarding benefits being given to public employees and the only exceptions are related to "self insured entities" ??? And doesn't being "self insured" have something to do with disclosure requirements also ???
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