The lawyer representing Chicago's retirees is calling on the Emanuel administration to put a five-year extension on the 55 percent city subsidy for retiree health care, arguing that doing so would give the federal health care law time to work out potential kinks in implementation. 

“It’s not fair to tell retirees, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be better off when we dump you.’ The idea that the federal plan will leave them better off because they can buy health insurance with subsidies is totally unproven,” Clinton Krislov, who the city's retirees, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Retirees have a good and secure program that gives them predictability in their lives. Extending the current settlement five years will give us the experience of how the two programs work in conjunction with each other or in substitution.”

A rep for the mayor's office says Emanuel is considering all options, but did not provide any insight on the direction in which he is leaning on the issue of retiree health care benefits and subsidies.