SACRAMENTO Teachers are taking an increasing amount of money out of their own wallets to cover the cost of healthcare in retirement and that trend will escalate, according to a survey by the California State Teachers' Retirement System.

While many educators receive Medicare, that plan does not cover vision, dental or all pharmaceutical needs. Consequently, many senior citizens must buy supplemental coverage and pay for their own drugs.

Thousands of California educators have seen school districts pare or even eliminate retiree health benefits in recent years, according to the CalSTRS survey, presented in detail Thursday in Rancho Cucamonga to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's special Public Employee Post-Employment Benefits Commission.

The survey results will come as another burr under the saddle to the state's teachers, who frequently contrast their health benefits to those offered by the California Public Employees' Retirement System.

That pension agency manages a $5 billion healthcare program for 1.2 million state and local government employees, including nonteaching workers such as custodians, bus drivers and office staff employed by school districts. CalPERS members receive lifetime health benefits.

Faced with surging healthcare costs, Lee Jernigan scaled back vacation travel and sold his 24-foot recreational trailer.

Since retiring in 1988, his teacher's pension check couldn't keep pace with the steady rise in insurance premiums, which more than doubled to $842 a month.

Medical benefits have eroded as medical inflation surged and new accounting standards force districts to list on their books future obligations for retiree health benefits.

These obligations translate into liabilities that can send a district's budget into the red and potentially hurt its credit rating, meaning the cost of issuing bonds could rise.

A similar accounting mandate for private companies led to a dramatic cutback in retiree health benefits in the early 1990s. For example, 66 percent of employers with at least 200 workers offered health coverage for retirees. The rate plunged to 46 percent in 1991 and had declined to 35 percent by 2006, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

"The costs are certainly a major pressure on employers. While many continue to offer it ... many firms are cutting back on the generosity of those benefits," said Michelle Kitchman Strollo, a principal policy analyst at the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, D.C.

She said governments are likely to feel the same economic squeeze soon. Jack Ehnes, chief executive officer of CalSTRS, confirmed that they are. Ehnes runs the nation's second-largest public pension fund with nearly 800,000 members.

"The employer support is weakening for healthcare coverage for retirees 65 and older," he told the Bee before presenting the CalSTRS survey to the benefits commission. "There are a lot of signs that show the out-of-pocket cost for retirees ... is going to go up."

Appearing before the commission, Ehnes reported the fund's survey found in 2006 that only 14 percent of school districts pay for health benefits for retired teachers after age 65, down from 22 percent in 2003.

Roughly, 62 percent of retirees had to pay for their own health coverage, including supplemental Medicare programs. That compares with 40 percent in 2003.