To the editor: I would like to correct a misunderstanding about Governor Patrick's proposal to increase the health insurance premiums paid by state employees, including thousands of UMass faculty and staff.

The AP report published in the Gazette Monday suggests that some 37,000 state employees will see a 10 percent increase in their share of health insurance costs. Actually, those employees will see a 67 percent increase, as their monthly premiums jump from a 15 percent contribution level to 25 percent. That represents in essence a yearly $1,400 pay cut for an employee with a family plan, and a total of $51 million added to the backs of state employees.

And this comes on the heels of a one-year contract for state employees that provided "cost of living" increases which fell well below the real increase in the cost of living. That's another definition of a pay cut.

The governor knows that we dug ourselves a hole in the 1990s by cutting taxes in this state in ways which almost exclusively benefited corporations and the wealthy. But rather than leading the kind of grassroots campaign to generate more revenue in a more progressive way, the governor has reverted to inside politics where ditching your allies - public servants across the state - is the name of the game.

Max Page
Amherst