NATIONAL RETIREE LEGISLATIVE NETWORK WASHINGTON D.C. FLY-IN – FEBRUARY 27-28, 2023
On February 27-28, 2023 four NCRO members (Howard Baron, Rich Brown, Jay Kuhnie, and Deb Morrissett) participated in the NRLN winter fly-in to Washington D.C. to advocate for retiree/senior issues. The NCRO members had Congressional meetings with Senators, Congresspersons or their staffs from Michigan and Ohio. In addition, Jay Kuhnie met with senior staff from Senate Committees on Finance and HELP (Health, Labor, Energy and Pensions).
Significant Congressional meeting discussion items included:
- Pension De-risking – Many employers are converting their pension plans to third-party insurance company annuities. When “de-risking” occurs with the purchase of an insurance annuity pension, plan participants lose the protection of the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) and ERISA. If an insurance company fails or is otherwise unable to make good on the annuity payments, the retiree’s benefits are backed solely by state guaranty associations. The maximum coverage of state guaranty associations varies widely by state, but most states guarantee only up to $250,000 per person per lifetime.
The NRLN advocates that the most straightforward remedy to prevent the potential harm of de-risking is for Congress to require that annuity contracts require the purchase of reinsurance that is sufficient to provide a replacement annuity of equal value from a third-party insurer that is independent of the annuity provider and financially capable. The reinsurance must travel with the annuity if the initial annuitant sells the annuity to another insurance company.
Several other requests included the requirement for the annuity provider to send an annual report showing financial status of the annuity to the recipients; require that a pension plan after a partial annuitization remain at least as funded as before the annuitization on a per person basis; etc.
- Reduce Prescription Drug Prices – Congress is commended for its August 2022 legislation which will help reduce the cost of some prescription drugs for older Americans. However Congress needs to do more to reduce the cost of lifesaving medicines. Legislation is needed to end “pay-for-delay” and other brand name drug makers’ tactics that obstruct generic drugs from coming to market. Legislation is also needed for importation of safe and less expensive drugs from Canada and other countries that meet FDA quality standards and to establish an emergency supply of key ingredients used in essential generic medicines and incentivize domestic manufacturing of these ingredients to build a more resilient domestic supply chain.
- Prevent Privatization of Medicare – (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid) CMS is using taxpayer subsidies to private insurance companies for Medicare Advantage (MA) plans and ACO REACH will receive even more subsidies as a move toward the privatization of Medicare. The NRLN opposed the use of MA and ACO REACH to privatize Medicare. After 37 years (1985-2022) of doling out over $450 billion in rebates to private insurers for MA, these programs are not competitive with original Medicare Fee-for-Service. In 2023, CMS will pay private insurance companies between 4 and 6 percent more for MA plan enrollees than they will pay for original Medicare Fee-for-Service. MA chronic care special services are denied to original Medicare enrollees. ACO REACH is turning healthcare for seniors over to Wall Street investors.
- Medigap Plan Prices on CMS Website — CMS provides on its website a range of prices for Medicare supplement plans (Medigap) by zipcode. NRLN advocated that CMS should provide the actual price of Medigap plans by zip code. This would provide seniors with actual prices of specific Medigap plans so they can compare the prices against prices they may be offered by a Private Medicare Exchange (PME), an insurance broker or insurance agent.
It was also advocated that there is limited ability for traditional Medicare plus Medigap people with pre-existing conditions to change Medigap plans. This is also true for people with a MA plan to change to Medicare plus Medigap after the first year of MA.
- Make HCTC Permanent — NRLN urged the reintroduction and passage by Congress of the bill to make permanent the Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC). This will help retirees ages 55-64 cover the cost of health insurance if their pensions have been taken over by the PBGC, or if their job was outsourced abroad under Trade Adjustment Assistance.
- Pass Susan Muffley Act — The House of Representatives passed the Susan Muffley Act to recover pensions for Delphi salaried retirees on July 27, 2022. However, the U.S. Senate failed to take up the legislation. The bill has been re-introduced in the House as H.R. 735, Susan Muffley Act. The NRLN advocated passage of the legislation that would recover the pensions that Delphi salaried retirees lost during the Delphi bankruptcy. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) is developing a companion bill in the Senate.
In addition to Congressional meetings on the 28th, and Monday the 27th included the following activities:
- NRLN Board Meeting in the morning.
- In the afternoon, attendees were briefed on the issues they would advocate for during their Congressional appointments by Jay Kuhnie, Ed Beltram (NRLN VP of Communications), and Bill Kadereit (NRLN President).
- Alyson Parker (NRLN Executive Director) provided a Capitol Hill perspective.
- Two guest speakers from the Kaiser Family Foundation made presentations on Medicare Advantage and ACO REACH.
Previous Fly-Ins
NRLN WASHINGTON D.C. FLY-IN – February 24-25, 2020
Four NCRO Board Members/Leaders attended the February 24th -25th NRLN Annual Leadership Conference. The general focus of the lobbying efforts in Washington, DC during the NRLN Annual Leadership Conference were opposing Medicare privatization, legislation to reduce the cost of prescription drugs and protecting retirees’ pensions. Two specific issues that were the focus of the NCRO participants were pension overpayment legislation and alerting our representatives to the merger of FCA and PSA and asking them to assist us if necessary to ensure that all pensions, including salaried pension, be transferred to the new company.
On day one, in the morning session, the NRLN Board of Directors met in an open to all attendees meeting to discuss current NRLN issues and to plan for the remainder of 2020. In the afternoon session attendees were provided briefings on the lobbying issues and a guest speaker from the Kaiser Foundation who has considerable expertise on Medicare, Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drugs presented to the group. Alyson Parker, NRLN Executive Director, reported that two pension protection issues advocated by the NRLN and the NCRO could be included in a bill that is expected to be introduced this year.
Ed Beltram, NRLN Vice President – Communications, briefed the attendees on talking points on three issues:
- Reduce Prescription Drug Prices – Congress should remove the prohibition on Medicare negotiating drug prices and replace it with a competitive bidding model used by businesses. Legislation is needed to end pay-for-delay and other brand name drug makers’ tactics that obstruct generic drugs from coming to market. Americans should be allowed to import safe and less expensive drugs from Canada. We lobbied for bills that would achieve these objectives.
- Pension De-risking – Many employers are converting their pension plans to third-party insurance company annuities. The steady decline in traditional defined-benefit pension plans through “de-risking” will continue, according to the findings of a recent survey by MetLife. When “de-risking” occurs with the purchase of an insurance annuity pension plan participants lose the protection of PBGC and ERISA. NRLN’s proposals for legislation would protect pension plan participants.
- Mergers, Acquisition and Spin-offs – The NRLN urged Congress to introduce and pass legislation to provide specific protections for pension plan participants when there are corporate mergers, acquisitions and spin-offs.
Guest Speaker – Tricia Neuman, Senior Vice President of the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and Director of the Foundation’s Program on Medicare Policy was the guest speaker. She explained the role of private plans in Medicare. Today 34% of the Medicare population is enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan. Projections are for participation in Medicare Advantage plans will reach 50% by 2029.
She also discussed Prescription Drug Costs. Total retail prescription drug spending in the U.S. in 2005 was $205 billion, $234 billion in 2017 (latest data available) and is projected to reach $605 billion in 2026.
On day two, we convened on Capitol Hill to meet with our legislative representatives to advocate the issues that are important to retirees. The NCRO group met with representatives from Michigan, Ohio and Florida. Meetings were held with the staffs of Senators Peters, Stabenow, Rubio and Scott. Meetings were also held with the staffs of Reps. Stevens and Webster. Key discussions centered around pension issues that affect us…. specifically protecting pensions in mergers and acquisitions, pension de-risking and pension overpayments.
Jay Kuhnie along with Bill Kadereit, President NRLN and Alyson Parker, NRLN Executive Director met with legislative representatives for key Senate Finance Committee members to discuss the legislative language that has been developed to dramatically change ERISA law and institute significant protections for pensioners who might face a pension overpayment issue. Much progress is being made and all critical entities seem to be on board. We are hopeful that the new language will be included in a bill later this year.
On September 23-24, 2019 seven NCRO members (Rich Brown, Peter Hollinshead, Dale Koch, Jay Kuhnie, Deb Morrissett, Dana Oliver and Ray Pasternak) participated in the NRLN fall fly-in to Washington D.C. to advocate for retiree/senior issues. The NCRO members had Congressional meetings with Senators, Congresspersons or their staffs from Florida, Michigan and Ohio. In addition, Jay Kuhnie met with Chris Allen (Senior Adviser to the Senate Committee on Finance) and Aliya Robinson (Senior Vice President, Retirement and Compensation Policy, ERIC – the ERISA Industry Committee). Jay, Dana and Deb also met with our Washington based attorneys. In total the NCRO participated in 13 meetings.
The NRLN Congressional discussion folder topics included:
- Traditional Medicare Should Have Access to Medicare Advantage Benefits
- Support for Bills to Reduce Prescription Drug Prices
- Support for Passage of Social Security 2100 Act
- House and Senate Report Cards
Although the NCRO handed out the NRLN discussion folder, the NCRO concentrated its efforts on the following:
- Protecting Retirees from Pension Plan Benefit Recoupment. (Limiting exposure to payback for pension calculation errors. The NCRO folder included proposed legislative amendment language.)
- Protecting Retirees in Pension Plan De-risking (Pension plan conversion to annuities or buyouts.)
- Protecting Retirees from Risks in Corporate Mergers, Acquisitions and Spin-offs. (Including proposed legislative amendments.)
In addition to Congressional meetings on the 24th, Monday the 23th included the following activities:
- The NRLN Board met in the Morning to review its 2019 financials, elect new Board Members and discuss the membership recruitment plan.
- In the afternoon attendees were briefed on the issues they would advocate for during their Congressional appointments. The Washington D.C. climate, NRLN finances and long-range planning, and NRLN outreach and grassroots activities were also discussed.