Editor, The News:
I am so sick and tired of articles and letters that go on and on about the extravagant pensions of public workers, because it is just not true.
After 2001, my meagre public employee medical severance pension was chopped.
I had free medical and dental for my entire life, but after 2001 everything changed. Every year promised benefits have been cut and deductibles increased.
This year, I have been hit with a further $768 for Medical Service Plan premiums, which is a lot when your whole pension is less than $300 a month. The public pension plan used to pay that. Now it doesn’t and the benefits of our health care plan are now an unbelievable $500 a year.
Well excuse me but I have fibromyalgia and that does not get me through January and now the income tax will not even let me write off my medical expenses.
What I get for that money is I have been waiting a year for a hernia operation and what I have been told is, it will be closer to two years before I get it or I end up in emergency, whatever comes first.
Anyone like to guess which will cost more money?
So stop with the public service pension bashing. We now have a worse plan than pretty well anybody. So is everybody happy now – except probably us retired public employees who apparently worked for a thankless employer.
I signed a medical severance pension contract in good faith and now have a document that is not worth the paper it is written on.
Government employees, you are working for people who hate you. You know where all the skeletons are buried. Please help us get rid of this government that only cares about themselves and their rich friends.
Wayne Clark
Maple Ridge