Posted on 02/26/2009 10:15:59 AM PST by SmithL
Sacramento - -- The cost of health care benefits for retired state employees will dramatically increase in the coming years, worsening California's financial woes, unless lawmakers come up with a plan to pay the bills, according to a report by the state controller.
The state now pays retirees' health costs as they are due each year, but that is the most expensive option for state lawmakers, who just finished a protracted battle to erase a $41 billion budget deficit in the cash-strapped state.
Instead, Controller John Chiang wants the state to nearly double what it spends on the benefits - to $2.7 billion a year - and invest that money. Earnings would pay some of the future health costs and save the state $17 billion in the next 28 years, the report said.
"Even as the state grapples with a decline in revenues during difficult economic times, it is important for lawmakers to begin crafting a long-range plan ... that will have the smallest impact on the state's pocketbook," Chiang said in a written statement.
States and cities nationwide are grappling with the future costs of health care for retirees because the Governmental Accounting Standards Board, an independent organization that oversees local and state accounting practices, required in 2004 that they calculate and report such costs.
In response, San Francisco voters changed the city's generous retiree health care plan in November by curtailing benefits for future employees.
State employees who have worked 20 years or longer now receive fully paid premiums for their health care when they retire, while 90 percent of their spouses' and dependents' premiums are paid by the state.
Employees working 10 years receive half that benefit, said Clark McKinley, a spokesman for the California Public Employees' Retirement System. The state Legislature is not considering changing those benefits.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
These government employee unions need busted. They can suffer like the rest of us.
The tax payers are now on their knees trying to support millions of government workers clinging to their backs.
Bad days coming for California.
Why does the State still offer this benefit?
Most every company that ever offered it discontinued the benefit a decade ago.
Let retiree’s pay for their own health insurance.
Wow... San Francisco got one right!
The state Legislature is not considering changing those benefits.
Why the heck not?
Could not agree more. There is something not right about employees of the public unionizing against the public.
When Barry gets Universal Health Care up and running...won’t this be a mute point (?) (sarc...sort of)
“Maybe the city was too generous. Maybe it was irresponsible. Maybe it was just unlucky.
Either way, Bakersfield owes its employees $205 million more than it has in savings. The city has 30 years to come up with the money, and the taxpayers of Bakersfield are on the hook.”
http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/697514.html
Gosh, i hope our luck changes. Effin nitwits
Moot, maybe.
Mute? Never!
;-)
This and CalPERS... Would you buy any Munis from this state? (Note not a offer to buy/sell or give advice....)
I think I’m going to gag ~ California’s State Controller John Chiang has actually proposed supporting budget outrages by ripping off the retiree’s medical benefits package.
mute - moot...oops, my bad. Product of CA education system!
The employees, retirees and veterans would go to the end of the line behind the 47 million illegal aliens.
BTW, if you fired all the federal employees and cancelled federal retiree pensions, you still couldn't balance the budget. I suspect it' pretty much the same in California with the state employees and retirees.
A lot of companies and the states are hoping that universal health care will take this burdon off their backs and put it on the federal tax payer.
There is no doubt that Zero and congresscritters are going to try and get this done..soon.
LOL. I was just joshin’ with ya!
My post on another thread which is pertinent to this one...
Obama is setting precedent and we should take that ball and run with it. According to him and the rest of the socialists, it is perfectly okay to pick one segment of society who is doing better than the rest and tax them to death.
So which segment of society do you see getting a larger and larger piece of the pie? GOVERNMENT WORKERS. They make more than their private sector counterparts and they have much better benefits and job security. Excluding the Post Office, there are 2,000,000 federal workers. Tax them an extra $1,000 a year and we’re up $2,000,000,000. Tax them $10,000 for that cushy government job and we’re up $20,000,000,000. Do this to all state, county, and city workers and we’ll be rolling in dough because pretty soon no one will want a government job and government will shrink by necessity.
Well, I did my 30+ years for the CSU...now collecting the enormous sum of 2K/mo. Guess I can look forward to paying my Kaiser premium, too? Wonderful.
“Obama is setting precedent and we should take that ball and run with it. According to him and the rest of the socialists, it is perfectly okay to pick one segment of society who is doing better than the rest and tax them to death.
So which segment of society do you see getting a larger and larger piece of the pie? GOVERNMENT WORKERS.”
Our elected representatives are the ones who would have to ‘run with it’. Let me know when you find some who have the cajones.
Where does it say that? It sounds like he is suggesting setting aside money now to pay for the unfunded obligations, which are in the range of $50 Billion dollars.
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