There may be no such thing as a free lunch, but Connecticut state employees do enjoy virtually free health care. But nothing is free. Someone always pays. In Connecticut, taxpayers pay for free health care for state employees — and, of course, for their own coverage, which has become ever more expensive.

A study by Georgetown University’s Center for Health Insurance Reform found that Connecticut state employees pay just 2% of their medical bills. Connecticut state employee health care benefits are the most generous state employee health benefits in the nation. Nationwide, the average state employee pays 14% of his/her medical bills.

The health care coverage of Connecticut state employees is the equivalent of a Platinum Plan under Obamacare – only 1.4% of Connecticut residents purchase (can afford) Platinum Plans on the state exchange.

Dear reader, what do you pay for health care coverage?

And that’s not all. Connecticut state employees can look forward to the most generous health care benefits in retirement as well. According to one of the most recent 50-state studies of the retiree health benefits of state employees, the health care coverage for retired Connecticut state employees is by far the most generous of the 50 states. Second-place California is far behind, with benefits 24% less generous.

The study, which compared the various elements of compensation of state employees in each state to those of comparable private sector employees in the same state, was commissioned by Nutmeg Research Initiative and conducted by Dr. Andrew Biggs, one of the nation’s foremost retirement benefit experts. The Townsend Group, which I head, oversaw the study.

Health care benefits are just another dimension of the overgenerous compensation enjoyed by Connecticut state employees. State employees have enjoyed a 33% wage increase over the six years under Gov. Ned Lamont.

Dear reader, have you gotten a 33% wage increase?

Pensions are another dimension. Over the same time frame, over $5 billion has been diverted into the state employees’ pension fund that could have been used for tax cuts or devoted to spending on programs for the benefit of the citizenry. While Lamont and the Democrats claim the money was needed to shore up the pension fund after years of underfunding, most of the funding has been required just to keep up with the huge increase in estimated future pension benefits caused primarily by the wage increases greenlighted by Lamont and his fellow Democrats. Pensions are based on wages. When wages go up, so do pension entitlements.

The gravy train simply does not stop for those on the state payroll.

These facts warrant elaboration. Unionized state employees have enjoyed six consecutive annual wage increases under Lamont: two 5.5% increases followed by four 4.5% raises, which compound to 33%. A state employee making $100,000 on Lamont’s first inauguration day is making $133,000 today. Meanwhile, the average worker in the nation’s private sector who was making $100,000 in early 2019 is making $123,000 today, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

As wages have skyrocketed, so too have future pension obligations. Just before Lamont took office in 2019, the state’s pension actuaries estimated the total future pension liability at $34.2 billion. In their most recent valuation, which is 16 months old, it was $42 billion.

Despite pouring the extra $5 billion into the state employee pension fund, the unfunded liability has inched downward only from $21.2 billion to $20.1 billion — over five years. All the extra money has only offset the impact of the wage increases; it has not reduced the legacy of Connecticut’s historical underfunding of pensions.

Now layer into the analysis the ginormously generous health care benefits that state employees enjoy.

The gravy train must stop.

State employees bargain with the state, i.e. Lamont, via a union alliance, the State Employees Bargaining Alliance Coalition (SEBAC). The current SEBAC wage contract expires in eight months, on June 30, 2025. The benefit side of the contract expires in less than three years. The benefit agreement was struck originally in 1997 with an unheard-of 20-year term. It has never come so close to expiration. Former Democrat Gov. Dannel Malloy extended it twice before its remaining term fell below five years.

So, without doubt, Lamont is now negotiating new wage and benefit agreements with SEBAC. On the wage side, he should be demanding a wage freeze, just as his predecessor Malloy did.

On the benefit side, he should also emulate his predecessor. Malloy negotiated meaningful pension benefit reductions. Yet, further benefit reductions, e.g. health care coverage reforms, are clearly needed. There is simply no reason that Connecticut state workers should enjoy vastly more generous health care coverage than state workers in all other states and fellow citizens in their own state.

The state employee compensation gravy train must stop. It is patently unfair and unaffordable.

Red Jahncke is the founder and CEO of Connecticut-based The Townsend Group International, LLC. He is a nationally recognized columnist who writes about politics and policy.