Free Republic

The shrinkage of employee retirement resources in the US has been well documented, as employers shift more risk onto their workers. Less so is the rate at which employers have been eliminating healthcare benefits for retirees. As the Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported, retiree health coverage is becoming an endangered species. "Employer-sponsored retiree health coverage once played a key role in supplementing Medicare," observe Tricia Neuman of the foundation. "Any way you slice it, this coverage is eroding." The chances of reversing this trend, plainly, are nil. But it's important to keep an eye on it, if only as a...

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 -...