CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Aug 19, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- A 1992 change in accounting
standards may result in healthcare benefits being scaled back for retired
government workers, a U.S. researcher says.
Richard L. Kaplan, a University of Illinois elder law expert warns, a 20-year
trend of stripping away employer-provided healthcare benefits for retirees in
private business may hit government retirees as well.
This year, the same accounting requirements that require employers to project
future healthcare costs that affect private sector retirees apply also to state
and local governments, adding hefty financial obligations to balance sheets.
"When those future costs are disclosed, the pattern has been that stakeholders
-- in this case taxpayers -- say, 'This is too much,'" Kaplan says in a
statement.
"There could be a big pushback from ordinary taxpayers who used to get these
benefits and had them taken away or who never got them at all."
Among U.S. companies with at least 200 employees, 35 percent provided retiree
healthcare benefits in 2006 compared with 66 percent in 1988, Kaplan says.
The findings are published in the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics.
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