Ventura County Star: County News
This is a good article on governement retiree health care costs. It basically is telling us that the taxpayers are going to have to cough up about another $100 billion over the next 20 - 30 years to pay benefits promised, but not reserved for by governement entities in California. Ouch. That is a lot of money - as the old saying goes, a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to a lot of money!
It's not just the public sector that has these problems, the private sector does too. It is all these unfunded liabilities that may end up bring two enemies together on a single issue - Government run healthcare. The private sector would like nothing else than to pawn off its liabilities to the government, this way they could become more competitive (so the saying goes) with companies whose home nation pays these costs. The public sector will have a hard time finding the money to fund these obligations and raising taxes is not something that keeps a politician in office for long. Thus unions and quite possibly corporate interests may come together to lobby for a government run healthcare system in order to get out of benefits they promised, but never saved up for.....in the end we (the taxpayer) still foot the bill.
I believe our health care system could use quite a bit of reform, but I don't believe government is the answer.
I also don't believe former state republican senator Keith Richmann's answer is the right. He advocates moving the retirement age from 60 to 65 or 70 for all public employees. While I do generally support a rise in retirement age, I don't believe Richmanns ideas make sense. Why keep an employee who wants to retire on the books? They'll be less productive, they'll get paid more (remember, government rewards longevity) than a new employee would (by probably a 2 - 2.5 to 1 margin), and at least in school districts could do harm to our children (a teacher who is sick of teachings won't do as good a job). These negatives outweigh the positives of a forced extension. However, I am in agreement that something needs to be done.
Scott Dauenhauer, CFP, MSFP
