03/28/2024

Unfunded Retiree Health Care Liability

The total liability grew $2.38 billion compared to the prior fiscal year, but the size of the increase was $1.50 billion less than estimated in last year’s report. Health care claims did not grow as rapidly as expected, and changes in health care delivery and assumptions about long-term trends helped to lower costs by $1.76 billion. Conversely, demographic shifts added more than a quarter billion dollars to the liability. These costs have increased dramatically over the past 15 years. In 2001, retiree health care costs accounted for 0.6 percent of the state General Fund budget. This year, they will total $1.90 billion, or about 1.6 percent of the budget. If no changes are made to the state’s method of funding retiree health care costs, the current $74.10 billion unfunded liability will grow to more than $100 billion by the 2020-21 fiscal year, and $300 billion by 2047-48.

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