Chicago City Employees Sue to Block Shift to ObamaCare Coverage

Right in the president's backyard

Retired city workers are asking a judge to block Mayor Emanuel from making them rely on Obamacare for their health insurance. It could cost Chicago taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

This affects most city retirees and it underscores how, after decades of grotesque financial mismanagement, the only choices left are painful ones. A spokesman for the lawsuit was a retired cop, wounded several times in the line of duty. Public employee unions hope that angry taxpayers staring at a doubling or even tripling of City Hall's property tax will empathize with Mike Underwood.

He moves slowly these days, in part because of arthritis he blames on being shot once and stabbed twice during 30 years as a patrol officer, but what bothers Mike Underwood the most right now is City Hall's plan to make him and his wife rely on Obamacare for health insurance. He considers it a betrayal.

"When I was hired, we were promised by Mayor Daley, the first Mayor Daley, that we'd have health insurance for ourselves and our wives for life," Underwood says.