Posted on 05/10/2007 12:52:26 PM PDT by SmithL
For decades, California has been promising its employees health care for life in retirement if they worked at least 10 years for the state. For as long as that promise has been offered, however, no one ever bothered to add up how much it would cost to keep.
As more employees retired, and lived longer, and health care costs rose, the bill kept rising. The state paid it every year for those already retired. But still no one thought to figure out how much it would cost to keep paying that bill for all the employees still working for the state who would eventually retire and claim their benefit.
Finally, prompted by a new national accounting standard, state Controller John Chiang has done the math. Chiang announced last week that the state is on the hook for about $48 billion. That's how much he says it will cost to pay for health care for all current retirees and for those now working for the state.
Incredibly, Chiang's estimate might be on the conservative side. His numbers assume that health care inflation will decline over the next 10 years to 4.5 percent a year. That's possible, but it seems fanciful at the moment. If health care costs rise faster, the state's obligation will grow more quickly as well.
This very big problem started from a very modest commitment. In 1961, the Legislature decided to start offering this benefit. That year the state paid $5 per month for each retiree. The total costs were $4.8 million.
Unlike public employee pensions, which are generally financed in advance with contributions from the worker and the taxpayers, the health care benefit is an unfunded liability. That means the state is obligated to pay it, but no money has ever been set aside ...
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
FYI
unfortunately the state passed all these pollution control laws
if not for that, folks might have died off soon enough that Calif could have afforded it
now they’re screwed
In other words, the $48 billion is a pipe dream and we still don't have the real number
Come on now you Claifornia taxpayers. I have two more years before I can collect this goody, and I very well may. So I want you all to get busy and pay up.
Doesn’t that just pucker yer sphincters? Shazzam Danny!!!
Hence the real and only reason for “national health care”
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
The gross domestic product (GDP) of California is about $1.4 trillion and accounts for just over 13% of the economy of the entire nation. ...
2006-2007 budget...
The budget package authorizes total spending of $127.9 billion, of which $101.3 billion is from the General Fund and $26.6 billion is from special funds.
Your tax dollars at work, well sort of. Thanks!
Is there any rule that says you must be a resident of the state to collect?
Nope. (Good question).
I can pack my family up and move to Idaho in 2 years and receive health care courtesy of the California taxpayers for all of us including my kids until they are 18 (2022 for my youngest!)
The Bill for Liberalism has been pushed off onto later gtenerations for DECADES...
Congratulations.
WE are the later generation, and the bill is becoming due-in-full.
It just isn’t California, either.
The coming Pensions/Medical Care crisis in Government, is going to make the S&L crisis, or Today’s Mortgage problems look PUNY in comparison...
And sadly, NO ONE wants to take the responsability for it, let alone try to fix it.
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