Legislator perk irks workers
State employees upset as retiree insurance tab rises
But lawmakers quietly voted seven years ago to start giving free or heavily subsidized health insurance to retired legislators, a benefit ballooning in cost, doubling in three years.
Angry state workers who saw their health insurance retirement benefits cut back by the 2005 Legislature are questioning legislators' benefits.
The state health insurance for retirees was given first to state workers in the late 1980s in lieu of cash pay raises, legislators were told during debate over the controversial HB213 during the 2005 Legislature.
It was given a decade later to legislators as a perk, a nice benefit for the low-paid, long-serving lawmakers. At first, it didn't cost much.
Legislators can "retire" at 62 with the same comprehensive health insurance they received as sitting lawmakers, paid for by the state. When they reach 65, the state pays for a supplemental plan that covers costs that Medicare doesn't pay.
In arguing in favor of HB213, lawmakers in the 2005 Legislature said the health care/unused sick leave conversion benefit for thousands of upcoming state worker retirees could, within a few years, balloon to $250 million or more, crippling state finances.
The state has approximately 20,000 employees, only 104 legislators. So while the costs of legislators' retirement benefits are growing, the retired legislators' health-care premiums don't have anywhere near the possible financial impact as those of the more numerous regular state workers' benefits.
Oddly enough, because the Legislature's separate pension fund has earned so much interest over the past few decades that the Legislature has not been putting any cash into it. Currently, the fund is actually 123 percent funded, retirement officials say, even though 221 retired lawmakers are now getting pensions totaling $712,000 a year.
But with rising health care costs and more legislators reaching retirement age, each year lawmakers have had to put more and more cash into the Legislature's health care insurance account for retired lawmakers, officials say.
If a 62-or-older retiring legislator has 10 years in office he gets 100 percent of the health insurance premiums paid by the state for the rest of his/her and a spouse's lives. If he served eight years in the Legislature, 80 percent of his premium is paid by the state; six years in office, 60 percent; and with only four years in office (just one Senate term or two House terms), 40 percent of his health insurance premium is paid for life by the state.
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