Speak up; Defend your retiree health benefits
Recently, E.J. McMahon — spokesperson for the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank — stated, “It’s simply not fair and not affordable to continue promising (state workers) employer-paid health insurance for the rest of their lives.”
McMahon used changes in the reporting requirements of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB – a private professional accounting group) to scare taxpayers with the projected cost of post-employment benefits.
The GASB standard requires projecting post-employment benefit costs 30 years into the future. This very subjective projection is easily manipulated and can produce some huge and inaccurate numbers. Most people who retire after age 55 don’t live another 30 years.
PEF President Ken Brynien and I, as well as others, have responded to McMahon’s comments.
Brynien said the $47 billion is a hypothetical projection, the GASB standard is a reporting mandate not a funding mandate and, “therefore, any so-called accounting estimates about how much the state should be putting aside are meaningless.”
I said: “If the issue is fairness and affordability,” McMahon should focus on ways “to alleviate the tremendous waste in government” and “start with an honest examination of our state’s entrenched political structure and special-interest largess.”
As PEF retirees and future retirees, we continue to fight to preserve and enhance our hard-earned benefits. We must be ready to combat efforts from those who continue to mislead and frighten taxpayers.
Author and social thinker Marshall McLuhan wrote, “The Media is the Message,” contending if your issue or argument goes unreported, it doesn’t exist.
As activists, we should not allow false and inaccurate published information to permeate our society. We cannot allow the quality of our lives, our thoughts and our culture to be shaped by those who care little for the population as a whole.
We must respond, or misinformation will go unchallenged and become the public perception.
The public should be reminded of our dedication and sacrifices as state workers. They should be told of the hardships seniors on fixed incomes suffer.
We should insist our lawmakers fix a health care system that is broken.