Media Covers Retire Healthcare

Hey Fran, we did this article two days ago, so that's another $50 to the Chaplains:

• More than 20,000 city employees and retirees have been dealt a crushing blow that could cost them dearly, but end up saving Chicago taxpayers $130 million a year.
  
  In a six-word ruling on Thanksgiving eve, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to hear the retirees’ appeal of a state Appellate Court ruling that essentially upheld Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s now-completed, three-year phase-out of retiree health care coverage and a 55 percent city subsidy for anyone who did not retire by Aug. 23, 1989.
  
  Clint Krislov, an attorney representing the retirees, said the decision means those retirees are entitled only to bare-bones protections outlined by lower courts.

How bad is it?

• Last week’s ruling is particularly costly to roughly 10,000 city employees who started working for the city before April 1, 1986, and therefore did not qualify for Medicare.
  
  They have been forced to choose between exorbitant premiums that, in some cases, are double their retirement checks or go without health insurance coverage at a time when they need it the most due to their age and declining health.

They're talking about retirees in their 60's, 70's even 80's or their surviving spouses who are Medicare ineligible and now have expenses that will outstrip their pensions. People who gave the entirety of their working lives to the city and now will have looming bankruptcy or insufficient care at the end of their lives.

Who needs Obama's death panels when you have Rahm Emanuel pulling the trigger?