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Obamacare Enrollees Become Urban Legend

"Nearly two weeks after the federal government launched the online Health Insurance Marketplace at HealthCare.gov, individuals who have successfully used the choked-up website to enroll for a subsidized health insurance plan have reached a status akin to urban legend: Everyone has heard of them, but very few people have actually met one."

Florida Pension Reform Plan Put on Hold

"A report ... by Milliman ... concluded that closing the state's pension system to future employees would endanger the benefits of those currently enrolled in the pension plan. The problem: Because [the] proposal would turn away new workers, the pension plan would be forced to rely on a shrinking payroll base on which contributions to retirees are made. To make up the shortfall, either workers or taxpayers would chip in more, the report stated.... But what the report didn't include were costs associated with keeping the pension plan intact, making it difficult to compare costs between reform and status quo."

AFL-CIO Group Says Report Bolsters Case Against Proposed Florida Pension Reform

"The Florida Retirement Security Coalition issued a stinging rebuke ... of Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford's efforts to reform Florida's pension system. Ok, that's hardly news coming from an outfit managed by the AFL-CIO.... But the group pegged [this] lament on a [recent] report ... that had been ordered by Weatherford to study the economic impact of the reform. It surely wasn't Weatherford's hope that the report would be used as ammo against his proposal."

Experts Question a Main Premise of Municipal Pension Reform

"Actuarial and financial investment experts told [Florida] lawmakers that an oft-quoted study by two non-profits is exaggerating the problems facing pensions for city and county workers throughout Florida.... [Both the CEO of a Fort Myers actuarial firm and] an investment manager at an Orlando firm said that a slumping stock market was largely to blame for flat returns from pension funds in recent years. But they both said that was about to change and now was not the time to overreact."

Past Time for Pension Reform in Florida

"As Florida continues to dig out of the worst economic period since the Depression, lawmakers have to look for any way they can to cut costs. And that includes pensions.... The Florida Retirement System covered about 623,000 people in 2012, but only about a quarter of them worked at state agencies or state-run universities or colleges. Almost half come from school districts, about 23 percent work for counties and the rest work for municipalities or special taxing districts."

Report Reveals Florida's Dramatic Shift in Favor of Gay Equal Rights

Excerpt: Florida now ranks among the top five states in the nation in protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people from discrimination, according to a report released today by the statewide civil rights group Equality Florida.

Florida Police, Firefighters Win Round on Pensions, But Will Legislature Agree?

"Facing a packed house of uniformed deputy sheriffs, Gov. Jeb Bush and the state comptroller Wednesday recommended restoring lost pension credits to police and firefighters but opposed spending part of a big pension-fund surplus to improve benefits for teachers and other public employees."