Apr 28 2011
CQ HealthBeat: Pew: Five Percent Savings Rate For Retiree Health Obligations Not Enough
States are on the hook for about $600 billion in retiree health benefits promised to public employees — but they've set aside only about $31 billion, or around 5 percent, according to a study released Tuesday by the Pew Charitable Trusts. "The situation has worsened since fiscal year 2008, when states had $587 billion in liabilities and $32 billion in assets," the study found. The study doesn't say that states should have saved up all of this money, or even most of it. But "the future fiscal burden could be enormous if more savings are not set aside or costs are not better managed," the study warns (Reichard, 4/26).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
|