I, too, worked for a city government, but another month will be 19 years since I retired. When I was working, the city paid for my health insurance and I paid for my dependents (two kids and a wife and later just the wife). And pension plans change all the time. When I started, I paid 3% into the pension plan and all police officers paid the same and retired the same after 20 years or more; one-half the current pay of a patrolman. They later changed it so we could retire at a larger percentage, but also paid 9% into the plan. And then another change, so for many years I paid 12.5% of my gross salary into the pension plan and the city paid another 25%, and we retired at a percentage of our high 5 year average salary; the percentage depending on years of service. The escalation clause is 4% of what I retired at (not cumulative; just a pay raise once a year and the same amount each year). We could keep our health insurance, but I had to pay for both my wife and myself. Over the years, the $100 deductible went to $300 and then many years ago to $1,000. Now I'm on Medicare with AARP's Medigap (supplement) through the city. And just for my wife's health insurance alone with $1,000 deductible and then an 80/20 split, I pay $515 a month, plus a bit more then for vision and dental insurance. One more year and she'll get on Medicare, also. Altogether, I'm now paying $778.14 a month for health insurance.
