Representatives of city unions and pensioners met today with members of emergency manager Kevyn Orr’s restructuring team to begin talks on drastic changes to health care for current and retired workers and one proposal he floated was the elimination of health care coverage for some firefighters and police who retire early.
“It comes down to dollars,” George Orzech, chairman of the Detroit Police and Fire Pension System, said after coming out of meetings this afternoon at city hall.
Orzech said there were few new details beyond what’s already been discussed: moving retirees onto Medicare and current workers onto health exchanges being set up by the government under the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, with some subsidy to help workers pay monthly premiums for health plans in the private-sector market.
The health care discussions appeared to have been much more subdued and less contentious than talks Wednesday about cutting pension benefits for current workers and retirees. That matter appears headed for an epic battle as workers and pensioners file suit against Gov. Rick Snyder and state Treasurer Andy Dillon, seeking to prevent them from filing a possible municipal bankruptcy petition for Detroit because, they argue, such a move would violate Michigan’s constitutional protections of public pension benefits.
Unlike pensions, health care benefits have no such constitutional defenses, giving unions and others far less power to fight proposals to reduce benefits. And Orr’s team believes that, if the city goes into bankruptcy, even the state’s pension protections are likely to be trumped by federal bankruptcy law.
By Orr’s calculation, Detroit’s debts and its pension and health obligations to workers and retirees may be as high as $20 billion, with $5.7 billion alone going to health care. It’s money Orr and his restructuring team say the city cannot pay.
Steve Dolunt, a police commander who is president of the Detroit Police Command Officers Association, said after the meeting that he learned the city is proposing to eliminate health care for police and firefighter retirees who leave before they are 55. Coverage would start once the retiree turns 55. That would be a change from the current system that gives cops, for one, retiree health care when they retire after 20 years on the job, or 25 years for those in mid-level management positions.
Dolunt said an officer or firefighter who started at age 21 and retired after 20-25 years years would have to find another way to get health care until he reached age 55 – meaning lining up another job, even if their bodies or mental health are damaged from demanding, dangerous jobs,
“I’m 57 and in decent shape — there’s people who aren’t in really good shape, and who’s going to hire them?” Dolunt said. “Who’s going to hire a firefighter, who’s done 20 years, in a new fire department? He can’t pass a physical. Same with police officers in their 50s.
“It’s scary.”
Dolunt said the discussions, beyond that, haven’t gone into details about what sorts of plans would be offered, how much they would cost workers or what monthly contributions the city would continue to make.
“We haven’t set a date for another meeting yet,” Dolunt said. “We’re not trying to be greedy. We didn’t come onto the job to get rich or be heroes. We came on to do a job. You’ve got firefighters who risk their lives, EMS and the police – and they’re doing this, and their families are wondering, ‘Are you going to come home at night?’. … And you get to the end of you’re career and you think, ‘I made it.’ And now you go, ‘No, I didn’t.’ ”
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