Ralph Lloyd to STRS Board: We must row our own boat

From Ralph Lloyd, September 14, 2009
Subject: Healthcare

To STRS and STRS HealthCare:

You are doing a disservice to your retired teachers if you do not state the original intent for the 5% increase for five years for both the employees and the employers.

The original intent, which was hatched two to three years ago, when Health Care copays that are deducted from the retirees checks began to become a burden for some retirees. This was then proposed to do these increases to offset the rising cost of the copays.

It was considered to be a necessity because some of your associates considered that by 2030 retirees will have make a choice between having Health Care or having a pension income. This is still the same problem now that we had three years ago, my COLA covers some of it now, but what will happen when you reduce the COLA and Health Care continues to increase? Same old Stuff (SOS) I conclude.

You MUST add the increase to the Health Care costs and not to the pensions like it was originally intended to do. There is not help forthcoming from the Federal Government on Health Care so we must row our own boat.

Ralph L Lloyd
Retired 17 years