AFSCME presses for affordable health care for Chicago retirees
City of Chicago retirees are urging Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the City Council to take action now to prevent crippling health insurance premium increases set to go into effect next year.
In 2013 the City of Chicago announced a plan to phase out subsidized health care for City retirees. AFSCME organized to defeat this plan in the City Council, but Emanuel’s allies succeeded in passing it over AFSCME’s objections.
The first round of cuts went into effect in 2014, increasing the amount retirees had to pay. The mayor’s new budget proposal calls for further health care cost increases for 2015, imposing even greater hardship on retirees.
“The city is abandoning its responsibility to retirees who devoted their working lives to providing important services to the city,” said Mary Jones, president of AFSCME Retirees in the Chicago area who worked in the Chicago Public Library for 33 years. “The cut in subsidies is forcing me and most other retirees to make some hard choices about how to get by on our modest pensions – we don’t get Social Security.”
Jones was joined at a Wednesday press conference by more than a dozen city aldermen who called on the Emanuel administration and the City Council to support an amendment to the city budget that would keep health care costs for retirees in check.
“We are committed to working with the administration to do more for these retirees who served the city, have modest pensions, already saw a significant increase in health care costs last year and cannot afford the annual premiums that are now looming over them,” said 21st Ward Ald. Howard Brookins, a member of the council’s Progressive Caucus and Chairman of the Black Caucus.
He was joined by 12 other aldermen, including John Arena (Ward 45), William Burns (Ward 4), Willie Cochran (Ward 20), Pat Dowell (Ward 3), Jason Ervin (Ward 28), Robert Fioretti (Ward 2), Toni Foulkes (Ward 15), Leslie Hairston (Ward 5), Roberto Maldonado (Ward 26), Ariel Reboyras (Ward 30), Roderick Sawyer (Ward 6) and Nick Sposato (Ward 36).
Without any action, health insurance premiums for many retired city employees would end up doubling over the course of two years, hitting more than 2,500 non-Medicare-eligible retirees especially hard. Many would wind up having to pay 25 to 30 percent of their annual pension – which averages a little more than $27,000 – on insurance premiums.
“This is not a question of resources,” Jones said. “The city clearly has the resources for private corporations, TIF districts and big projects. This is a question of priorities.”
Call your alderman today and tell him or her: Retirees can’t afford such big increases in our health costs! Urge Mayor Emanuel to work with AFSCME on a fair solution that protects retiree health benefits!
To find out who your alderman is call 311 or click here.
