Hundreds of thousands of public workers could be dealing with steep increases to their health care costs next year if the state moves forward with a recommendation made by the Treasury Department this week.

It calls for double-digit increases for all health plans, hitting local government workers the hardest, followed by school employees and state government staffers.

Though, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation report, that spike mirrors the spike in employer health benefit plans throughout the Northeast.

Unions though representing public workers are speaking out, saying their members were prepared to pay more, but not this much.

Senior correspondent Brenda Flanigan has the latest on the fallout.

Our members and the working people of New Jersey are drowning in health care cost.

They cannot afford it.

Union leader Billy Gallagher says public employees in New Jersey simply can't pay the jaw-dropping hikes in healthcare premiums proposed to kick in next year.

Recommended increases announced by the governor's office range from a whopping 36.5% for county and local workers to almost 30% for school employees to 21% for state workers including Gallagher's 35,000 active CWA members.

We understand the union understands that healthcare has gone up.

We understand there's some drugs on the market that have become more expensive.

In fact, for years, inflation's driven up the price of doctor's visits, hospitalizations, and prescription drugs, including pricey new weight loss meds like WGO.

But Jerseys health care systems in what one state official called a quote death spiral.

A police union cited one example.

An officer earning 105,000 a year paying $17,000 in premiums for family health coverage on average would face a 36% rate hike.

It's not sustainable.

Completely unsustainable.

Even the state treasury came out about a month ago and put a report saying that the system has failed.

The system has failed because they've failed it.

The administration should be leading the charge as far as reforms go and working with our public workers because they have skin in the game both in the quality of their health care and in the outrageous amounts of money that they're having to contribute.

And Republican Senate Budget Officer Declan Ocan says it's state taxpayers who pick up the rest of the tab.

And there's no easy answers again because the administration has waited so long to take action.

I'm past the point of fingerpointing because there's plenty of blame to go around.

Lobbyists for towns and counties expect significant fallout without a workable resolution before the rate hikes take effect.

It could affect operations, day-to-day operations.

It could result in reduction of services.

It could result in property tax increases.

And then we have to look at our employees.

When you have lazare attitude towards managing a market, this is what will happen.

And it's a problem.

Linda Schwimmer heads a nonprofit that advocates for highquality affordable health care.

She says many solutions have been repeatedly recommended but not adopted.

It's just that we haven't had the political will, fortitude, bravery, whatever you want to call it to take action.

Among the biggest challenges, keeping towns from abandoning the state health care pool in search of cheaper options and pushing the state to negotiate far more aggressively for better deals with hospitals and drug makers.

The state can go directly to health systems and say this is the price we want and it's clear that they do not want to fight with the healthcare industry or the CEOs of hospitals.

Uh well, the time has come where we where we need to do that.

The governor's office says he believes these rate increases are unsustainable for both taxpayers and workers.

He's ready to work with all parties over the next few months to lower costs.

Meanwhile, Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin announced Democrats are working on A5903, new legislation to stabilize premium costs and implement long desired governance and transparency measures.

The assembly will take action later this month and our goal is to have a solution in place before the rate increases take effect.

Ocan remains skeptical.

This was probably somewhat PR driven.

Scare the hell out of everyone with a 37% increase and then expect people to pat it on the back when it's only a 25% increase.

Um, we won't be doing that uh because it's all a disaster.

The issue will loom large in campaigns with both the governor's office and all 80 assembly seats on the ballot this November.

I'm Brenda Flanigan, NJ Spotlight News.

Support for the medical report is provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, an independent lency of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.