"For 32 years I didn't take the state health insurance; the coal mine (where he worked as a government affairs director) paid my insurance. So I've saved the state a lot of money on insurance over the years. But I need it now," Dmitrich said.

Dmitrich had part of one lung removed earlier this year, diagnosed with cancer. His medical costs hit $33,000, he said. "As we get older, this insurance is real important."

Said Clark: "From the perspective of my own conscience, morally this is the right thing to do. We need to let the state employees know that we (in the Legislature) are tightening our own belts, too."

Clark said he didn't run for the Legislature expecting or wanting the state to pick up his health care when he retired. "And no other legislator I know did."

In fact, Clark said he didn't even know that the state provided a retirement health-care benefit for legislators until about halfway through the HB213 debate during the 45-day session. "When I found out, I was willing to run a (legislative) repeal as part of HB213. But a UPEA lobbyist said I shouldn't."

The Utah Public Employees Association, which represents around 7,000 of the state's 20,000 full- and part-time workers, has been the strongest critic of HB213 and is now suing the state over the new retirement law.

"I can't believe he (Clark) would do this again," said Audry Wood, executive director of the UPEA. Wood said HB213 was enacted with no actuarial study.

"We don't know if HB213 will even save the state any money. And now (Clark) wants to take away a benefit from hardworking legislators, some of whom have to give up their earning power, their livelihood (at their regular jobs) during the 45-day general session, without a study to see if this will save money? It amazes me," she said.

The legislative benefit is not really a question of saving a lot of taxpayer money, Clark said. Retired legislators' health-care premiums may only cost the state several hundred thousand dollars a year in the future, while retired state workers' benefits would have risen to tens of millions of dollars a year, Clark said.

"It is an ethical question," Clark said. "There is a perception problem. We should repeal" the legislative benefit.

---

E-mail: bbjr@desnews.com