Public Employees' Health Benefits Survive Major Threats, So Far

April 18, 2006
Health Affairs, Web exclusive
Robert E. Hurley, Laurie E. Felland, Anneliese M. Gerland, Jeremy D. Pickreign

Previous studies of public employees’ health benefits indicate that they have been spared many of the changes evident in the private sector. But the recession and plunging state revenues in the early 2000s presented growing challenges to trying to preserve these benefits. Findings from the Round Five site visits of the Community Tracking Study (2005) reveal that benefits have still witnessed surprisingly few major modifications. But a growing gap between public- and private-sector benefits and new accounting requirements for government entities’ retirement costs raise new threats to this protected status.

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