This is all real simple for all of you who don't know anything about it.   Survivor benefits, including health insurance survivor benefits, have always been a creature of PERS eligibility.   The issue here is that these are Tier II or III employees who can retire as early as their early 40s, but don't have PERS eligibility until they're 55.   Just for the record, a State employee who dies on duty doesn't leave his/her family destitute; the life insurance benefit is pretty lucrative.   Until an employees is PERS eligible, the only death or survivor benefit is the life insurance, and It has been that way as far back as I can remember, and that is a ways.   I actually had some authority when I was head of labor relations and I'd have just called Jake Metcalfe and made a deal to consider the deceased Troopers active employees until the spouses remarried or the dependents reached majority.   Could have done it with the stroke of my pen, and If I were nervous about it get the Leg to agree.