A New York advocacy organization filed suit against the state and governor, asking them to roll back a 2% increase in the percentage public service retirees pay toward the cost of their health insurance premiums.

Andrew Cuomo

The lawsuit, filed in Albany County Supreme Court by the Retired Public Employees Association (RPEA), asks that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other state officials be stopped from extending provisions of negotiated union contracts and imposing the terms on existing retirees.

“When we retired from the State there was a promise that our percentage cost would remain stable – now the administration feels that since they negotiated new contracts they can extend them to non-represented retirees,” Stan Winter, president of RPEA, said in a statement. “The Taylor Law does not allow retirees to participate in collective bargaining and therefore, it is blatantly illegal to apply such agreements to those who have already retired.”

Under existing Civil Service Law, state employees who retired after Jan. 1, 1983, pay 10% of the cost of health insurance premiums for individual coverage and 25% for family coverage. The last time contribution percentages were changed as a result of union contracts, existing retirees were “grandfathered” and only future retirees had to pay the increased percentages.

Retirees’ costs are based on premiums and co-pays set by health insurance carriers, which increase every year, according to the Albany, N.Y.-based RPEA. In the past 15 months, RPEA reported, there were four premium increases.

These plans are coordinated and administered by the New York State Health Insurance Plan (NYSHIP) under the auspices of the NYS Department of Civil Service, Employee Benefits Division, which is a named defendant along with the governor in the lawsuit.

RPEA, founded in 1969, is an advocate for public service retirees. It has about 50,000 members in all 50 states and seven foreign countries.