They also loom over many cities and states…

The costs are scary, and they speak to how much subsidized health care by the state actually costs in our country. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pay, but it does mean that it looks like it’s going to hurt quite a bit…

More from the NY Times:

When the Metropolitan Transportation Authority proposed making new workers chip in more to its pension fund than current workers do, it was enough to send the union out on strike and bring the nation’s largest mass-transit system to a halt for three days.

But the cost of pensions may look paltry next to that of another benefit soon to hit New York and most other states and cities: the health care promised to retired teachers, judges, firefighters, bus drivers and other former employees, which must be figured under a new accounting formula.

The city currently provides free health insurance to its retirees, their spouses and dependent children. The state is almost as generous, promising to pay, depending on the date of hire, 90 to 100 percent of the cost for individual retirees, and 82 to 86 percent for retiree families.

Those bills - $911 million this year for city retirees and $859 million for state retirees out of a total city and state budget of $156.6 billion - may seem affordable now. But the New York governments, like most other public agencies across the country, have been calculating the costs in a way that sharply understates their price tag over time.

Personally, I’d pitch in more to my pension fund in order to secure the type of health care that these plans ensure, but that’s me…not them. I think it’s understandable that these transit workers feel shortchanged by this request given the years of service they’ve given the system.

But that doesn’t change the reality of these costs. And yes, it’s quite a bit disheartening to learn that our health care costs are so dramatic, and it certainly doesn’t bode well for universal health care. But given the rising costs of Bush’s prescription drug program, it doesn’t surprise me. Maybe if we’d allow the federal government the right to leverage its buying power, we could have more sane spending? Perhaps?

But to the broader point…I believe in unions, but I think that the initial idea behind them has been changed in favor of something that isn’t as common sense. And I should know since my grandfather helped lead the charge for a union at the General Motors plant in Kansas City. Yes, I’ve been properly educated why unions were needed at that time. To hear the stories he tells about workers being docked pay for getting a drink of water are nearly unthinkable, but it happened and he was witness to it all. That’s why he stood up and fought. But that’s not the reality now, yet I feel some still hold the same type of zeal. For me, it presently feels more like “what will you give me” instead of “what can we do together.” And as rich as these multinational companies are, they all can reach a breaking point, and the same certainly goes for state-run agencies.

In any event, I urge you to read the whole article. It doesn’t present a pretty picture and it could end up pinching the taxpayers in the end.