ML-Implode News - NY's Unfunded Public Retirement Health Benefits Balloons To $90+ Billion

New York's unfunded liability for state government retiree health coverage has reached $90.5 billion--an increase of $3 billion over last year's estimate, and nearly $13 billion in just two years, according to the just-released First Quarterly Update to the state's FY 2019 Financial Plan.
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What this basically means is that the state has a $91 billion debt in addition to its bonded state-related debt of $55 billion. And as the number of retirees and cost of health insurance grows, the OPEB debt will keep growing--unless something is done to reform or rein in these benefits.
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The annual charge for retiree health coverage--which, excluding SUNY, came to about $1.6 billion in fiscal 2018--is just the tip of a very big iceberg. Counting all public agencies in New York, including localities and authorities, the Empire Center estimated in 2012 that the total unfunded OPEB liability came to $250 billion--a figure that now probably is closer to $280 billion, if not higher.
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Government retirees at almost every level in New York are entitled to continuing health care coverage at a heavily discounted rate, or even for free--a benefit that has virtually disappeared from the private sector.

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NY's Unfunded Public Retirement Health Benefits Balloons To $90+ Billion