US government short $1.2 trillion to pay its own retirees' healthcare

[babsbunny]

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/US_short_1.2_trillion_to_pay_0216.html

John Byrne
Published: Monday February 16, 2009

There may yet be more bailouts in sight. Next time it might not be the banks -- it might be your retirement, and there might not be enough money left.

While it's relatively well-known that Social Security is short as much as $50 trillion needed to pay the benefits of future retirees, the shortfall needed to pay civil servants' retiree benefits -- split between the federal government and US states -- is a whopping $1.7 trillion, according to an estimate released Monday.

[Lars39]

1. Ouch.

A cousin and her spouse both retired from the IRS a couple of years ago. They thought they were set...this must be a rude awakening for them. :(

[elifino]

4. Makes me have second thought about government control

of my health care. Of course at 70 I do rely on the government for my primary, I get secondary coverage through the company I retired from for $92.00/month and that includes drug coverage. The last time I went to the doctor, it cost me out of pocket $5.00 for the doc and $5.00 for the prescription.

[Lars39]

5. That's why *everybody* needs to be covered.

With everyone in the same pot, there's more people to keep things right.

[sandnsea]

2. But wait. There Is No Crisis!

I hope people wake up to the fact that that was a political campaign to prevent Bush from dealing with social security and medicare; and now civil service benefits too it looks like.

[Bigmack]

3. Holy shit....

This is scaring me more every day. There is NO area of our economy that's healthy.