Health benefits for retirees have been part of the picture in most large corporations and governments since WWII. There would be a diminishingly small number of California retirees who didn't have health benefits as part of their retirement.
You can see the hand writing on the wall here. GM, Ford and now CA all want to get rid of their health care responsibilities. Solution will be to give it to Uncle Sugar.
Either that or they will float a new $50 Billion bond issue to fund it..with future tax dollars.
All of us are having our health care premiums rise and coverage shrink. Contract or no.
I don't think that retirement benefits are the issue here. The issue is socialized medicine, where those who have NO health care benefits, due to personal non-purchase and/or jobs that don't include benefits, getting health care benfits from a socialized state (where taxpayers are forced to fund medical coverage for others).
The illegal aliens, for example, pay nothing for medical insurance, and just show up at the emergency rooms and the non-paying service is recovered through increased medical insurance premiums to OTHERS to offset the cost, and/or through TAXPAYERS who will be subsidizing services to non-payers in a socialized medicine scheme.