It is now official. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has signed legislation that takes away the free health insurance benefits that were promised to retired government employees, including teachers. The purpose of this legislation is to help balance the budget for the state of Illinois.
There was a point in time when I was living in Illinois, and working as a substitute teacher. Back then, my hope was to find full-time employment as an Art teacher in one of the public schools in Illinois. That plan didn’t work out. The state was in the process of cutting away Art positions, and appeared to have zero plans to hire Art teachers in the future. Clearly, I wasn’t meant to have a career as a teacher in Illinois.
I have since moved to California. Every once in a while, I read a news article that makes me incredibly thankful that I did not end up working as a teacher in Illinois. In February of this year, I wrote about proposed legislation in Illinois that would have resulted in the loss of health insurance benefits for retired school teachers.
Governor Pat Quinn had a budget proposal that would cut the state of Illinois’ contribution toward health insurance benefits for retired school teachers and retired community college professors. He said the cuts were intended to avoid a financial meltdown over rising pension and health care costs. The state of Illinois would save around $92 million from these cuts.
This week, Governor Pat Quinn signed that legislation. This insurance legislation affects state employees, university and community college staff, judges and legislators. It is going to affect more than 80,000 retired government employees.
Originally, this group was promised that they would receive free health insurance as part of their retirement benefits if they worked at least 20 years in a government employment position. Those that worked less than 20 years would receive health insurance benefits after retirement for a low cost.
The new legislation goes back on that promise. Retired government workers are now going to have to pay for the health insurance plan that they probably took the job in order to be able to receive. It has yet to be decided exactly how expensive those premiums will be.
Right now, Governor Quinn is working on a plan that will cut pension checks for current workers and retirees. Again, this is being done because the pension systems are $83 billion short of what they will someday need to pay out to workers.
Image by Chris Eaves on Flickr