Public employees' health benefits survive major threats, so far.
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.
Hurley
Robert E
RE
Department of Health Administration, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, USA. rhurley@hsc.vcu.edu
Felland
Laurie
L
Gerland
Anneliese
A
Pickreign
Jeremy
J
D000066:Accounting; D017049:Employer Health Costs; D006077:Government Agencies; D006264:Health Benefit Plans, Employee; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006279:Health Maintenance Organizations / Q000191:economics; D006801:Humans; D012179:Retirement / Q000191:economics*; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013219:State Government; D014481:United States