A commission is wrestling with the issue of how much the state pays its citizen lawmakers, and whether they should get more. By one calculation, they are paid $120 for each day they work at the Capitol. That's modest.

But if you take into account the benefits that legislators receive, particularly state-sponsored health, dental, life and vision insurance, Medicare supplements and retirement, the picture changes. Under that formula, veteran legislators are pulling down about $600 a day.

Frankly, even that's not overly generous. Conscientious legislators work hard on complex public issues, and their work must take an emotional toll. They put in countless hours outside the time they spend at the Capitol, for which they are not compensated.

No doubt about it, public service is the right term for what they do, because if they were in it just for the money, they could make a lot more doing something else.

That said, it would be better if Utah's lawmakers were paid more in cash and were not eligible for state-sponsored benefits, particularly health insurance. They should not be insulated from the health-insurance crisis that holds many Utahns and small-business owners in its grip.

Yet that is the effect of the current legislative compensation package, which makes legislators eligible for health insurance benefits on the same basis as full-time public employees. As with full-time state employees, legislators' immediate families also are eligible for coverage. Lawmakers pay the same premiums as state employees.

This is doubly dubious because lawmakers are part-time employees. Most employers do not provide health-insurance benefits for part-time workers.

Because the state regulates insurance, and because legislators are knee-deep in expensive budget and policy decisions that affect Medicaid, the federal-state partnership that supplies health insurance to low-income people, we believe that they should be struggling against the same tide as their constituents are.

Many legislators are professionals or operate small businesses, so they are aware of the challenges of the health-insurance system, but they still should not have the state's health-insurance umbrella over their heads while they are in office.