Reducing Health Care Liabilities
Employee Benefits Law Group can show you the options available to help control retiree health liabilities. We can work with you to redesign plans and build more effective funding practices. Whether you offer retiree health benefits either on your own or through the CalPERS health insurance system, we can find ways to help you reduce expenses and meet commitments.
We understand the regulations and obligations that public agencies face when it comes to retiree health benefits, and we’re equipped to deliver cost-effective and sustainable plans.
We help ease the financial burden of Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) and retiree health plans for many public sector employers. Although these benefits may be subject to California’s “vested rights” doctrine, we can help you find way to:
- Substantially reduce or eliminate OPEB liability.
- Fund liabilities.
- Comply with the “equal contribution rule” under the Public Employees’ Medical and Hospital Care Act (PEMHCA) while establishing varying rates of employee and retiree cost-sharing for OPEB and health benefits.
- Better negotiate with unions to obtain and maintain flexibility with respect to OPEB.
Union bargaining partners come to the table with many different proposals on how best to provide their members with affordable and sustainable OPEB. Our specialized employee benefits counsel covers all the bases with benefits. We can help you negotiate with unions and we know what does and doesn’t work because we’ve seen just about all of these proposals. We’ll help you find options that make sense for your agency.
“They are proactive. Not just here’s a problem, but here’s how we can fix it.”
– Iain Mickle, Partner, Boutin Jones