And "lifetime medical insurance" is NOT FREE.
Not 100% true. Employees put in 3% of their pay and the federal govt is supposed to put in an amount equal to 27% into the fund.
The payout on the backside really isn't that much. 20 years as a law enforcement officer gets you 34% of an average of your high three. Non-law enforcement get 1% for every year of service. Even after 30 years you are only getting 30%.
Lifetime medical equals being able to buy into the fed program for the same amount as when you were working until you become Medicare eligible then you are on that plan.
“The federal pensions are paid out of funds that are, for the most part, funded up front by deductions from federal employee salaries.”
You are wildly misinformed about federal government compensation. Federal employees pay only a small amount towards their pension. Federal employees contribute 0.8% and taxpayers pay 11.2%. In addition, the federal goverment contributes 6.2% for Social Security and another 5% for the 401K plan. I have heard federal government employees downplay the value of their retirement compensation. While it is true that the replacement rate is smaller than most state plans, the pension includes a 5 year supplement to cover Social Security if retiring at age 57. The most important part is the COLA. Unlike any other pension except Social Security, federal employees receive the CPI-W COLA that has consistently overstated inflation for many years. No other state pension plan comes near the CPI-W COLA.
Regarding the medical benefits, you are receiving a large subsidy. You need to compare your cost to the private sector cost without being on the government plan. With this comparison, you would find that your subsidy is more than $20,000 per year.
The worst part about federal retirement benefits is that all benefits are completely unfunded. There are no savings to pay for the benefits. The cost of the benefits will fall to future taxpayers. The taxpayer contribution is used to pay benefits or fund other parts of the government. Federal pensions should have portfolio of perhap $1 trillion to support benefits. Instead, federal pensions will be another large contributor of future debt.