No, it's not the same, which is why they're looking at having to increase it to shore up the system that's running short. 

And I never said we can "just flip to a new system", not without some near term pain by all (in order to get to a better place long term).  New hires would go on SS + 401(k) and no new employees added to PERA, but it would take many decades for the people already grandfathered in to retire and eventually die.  

Fortunately this isn't fully a pay-as-you-go system like SS is, where 100% of revenues come from current contributions.  It's a large fund that generates investment gains, which means it wouldn't be AS BAD to phase out.  Still some pain involved, but not nearly as much as it could be.