I think the very worst part of all of this is that employees who work in the public sector do not have the option of Social Security. They were covered under the retirement plans the entity they worked for had in place, the one they were contracted to provide. So if you worked for the public sector all your working life, you are back to work until you die unless you paid into the Social Security system as a part of a second job or have a spouse who worked a job that contributed to Social Security.

The point is that the experts talk about the "three-legged stool" approach to retirement. It includes savings, a retirement plan and health care when you are a public sector worker. The employers have effectively kicked out two legs of that stool and those people now have to figure out how to balance that stool on one leg at a late stage in life, when they did everything right while they worked.

I agree that the retirement plan offered may have to be changed with the employees contributing more, but it has to start with new employees and current workers and not with the retirees and people who are close to retirement. If we don't honor our promises/obligations, we will not be trusted to honor anything else we might promise in the future.