Status on health care protection legislation S6397/A9722 – Governor’s veto on June 21, 2006

This year again, the Governor has vetoed the retiree health care protection legislation that was passed by the Senate and Assembly. As of posting time we have been unable to obtain a copy of the veto message but we expect that it will be similar to the messages of previous years.

As has been true for the last several years, the PEF Retirees have joined with the Retired Public Employees Association, the Retired Teacher’s Association, the Organization of Management-Confidential Employees Retirees , and a number of retired police and fire organizations to lobby for this bill. In past years, we have been able to get legislative commitment to pass the bill but not commitment to go for an override. This year, we seemed to have that commitment for an override but the legislative session recessed before an override motion could be made.

There appears to be a possibility that the Legislature will return before December 31 and therefore a possibility of an override later in the year. In the event that this happens and if we have sufficient time, we will try to coordinate a contact-your-legislator campaign. However, we encourage you to monitor this Retirees web-page as that will be the first place that we will post information.

Regardless of how this ultimately plays out this year, we want to thank Senator Hugh Farley and Assemblyman Peter Abbate for introducing this bill and successfully shepherding it through their respective houses. We also want to express appreciation to Senate Majority Leader Bruno and Assembly Speaker Silver for their support of this bill. Last but not least, we want to thank those of our members who took the time and effort to send faxes, e-mails, letters, and phone calls to the legislators and the Governor.

Even if we are not successful this year, stay tuned; we will be back again next year.

June 27, 2006