NRLN 2008 Leadership Conference and Board Meeting Focus On Retiree Issues
A focus on key retirement legislative issues, implementing a new organizational structure, growing the grassroots network and hearing from individuals who gauge the pulse of government leaders highlighted the NRLN’s 2008 Annual Leadership Conference and Board of Directors Meeting in Washington, D.C.
For the board members and others who had arrived at the Washington Court Hotel near Capitol Hill in the early afternoon of January 22nd there was an informal discussion about the NRLN’s 2008 goals and new operating structure.
President and Vice President, Legislative Affairs Kickoff Conference
New NRLN President Bill Kadereit, a Lucent retiree, opened the Leadership Conference reminding the audience that “The NRLN is the only U.S. organization dedicated exclusively to restore and advance both fixed income and healthcare benefits for current and prospective retirees through national legislative action.”
Bill identified the NRLN’s 2008 strategic goals as:
· Execute and deliver on legislative agenda objectives.
· Accelerate activism.
· Establish a more sustainable financial base.
· Grow at-large individual memberships.
· Grow the grassroots network.
· Expand and energize NRLN board and association leadership support.
· Continue to evolve and improve legislative agenda process.
· Advance the NRLN “brand” on Capitol Hill.
Bill went on to describe the NRLN’s infrastructure and new roles for board members. The board has been expanded from 11 to 13 with the two new positions on the board to be identified in the future. Board members will also serve as Regional Vice Presidents to spearhead membership and grassroots network growth in geographic regions across the U.S. Bill also identified the leaders of NRLN committees (A listing of board members and committee chairs can be accessed through the “About Us” section of the NRLN website at www.nrln.org .)
Bob Foresta, a Detroit Edison retiree, is the new NRLN Vice President, Legislative Affairs. In his presentation he discussed the major initiatives that are part of the NRLN’s 2008 Legislative Agenda. These included:
· Protection of defined pension plan assets from use in corporate restructuring.
· Advocate the Maintenance of Cost Payment concept for corporate-sponsored health care benefits.
· Gain legislation to reverse the EEOC rule if it is not heard and overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
· Support Medicare “buy-in” whereby retirees under the age of 65 are offered an opportunity to buy-into Medicare coverage at Medicare cost levels. The NRLN believes strongly that retirees under age 65 should be afforded Medicare coverage.
· Track the various National Health Care Plan proposals as they emerge and determine which ones best serve retirees.
· Appeal to Congressional Committees to hold hearings on retirement issues.
· Advocate Tax Reform that is in the interest of retirees.
· Seek legislation to make health care premiums deductible without AGI limits.
· More details about the legislative agenda will be available on the NRLN website.
Bob concluded his presentation saying that the legislative agenda must become more than words on paper and the help needed to make that happen is to increase association and individual membership participation, gain more grassroots advocates and increase the number of individual and association contributions to the NRLN.
Washington, D.C. Team Members Report On Capitol Hill Issues
Two members of the NRLN’s Washington, D.C. team, Marta Bascom, Executive Director, and Michael Calabrese, Legal Counsel, made co-presentations. Marta identified the Congressional committees important to the NRLN and the climate for dealing with the committees. On the House side it is the Committee On Ways And Means and the Committee on Labor and the Workforce. On the Senate side it is the Committee on Finance and Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP).
Marta and Michael agreed that the current name of the game in Washington, D.C. is “Who is going to be President of the United States in 2009?” They talked about how Democrats and Republicans in Congress will be careful not to push an agenda in 2008 that might harm whoever wins the party nominations. They agreed there would be limited opportunities to get large-scale bills, such as healthcare reform, passed in 2008.
They said there are likely to be a significant number of hearings in 2008 intended to “tee up” legislation for 2009 and this presents opportunities for the NRLN to lay the groundwork for bills that it wants to see introduced and passed.
Michael talked about his involvement with a number of retiree associations in the preparation of proxy proposals submitted by retiree shareowners. He said a number of the proposals received a majority of votes cast at annual shareowners meetings and a number of corporations had adopted the proposals advocated by retirees.
NRLN Committees Study Health Care and Pension Plans
Ed Bettinardi, Chairman of the NRLN’s Health Care Advisory Committee (HCAC) and a Johns Manville retiree, was unable to attend the conference, but he provide a presentation that was delivered by Bill Kadereit. The HCAC has been reviewing proposed health care options for retirees and seniors since January 2005. As many retirees know, corporations are backing out of prior commitments to provide health care benefits, leaving many with no coverage or reduced coverage at a higher cost to the retirees.
The HCAC believes the long-term answer to this problem is legislation to create Universal Health Care patterned after either Medicare or the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHB). The NRLN has adopted the National Coalition on Health Care specification and it’s five governing principles. There are now more than 50 bills on various aspects of health care in Congress, none of which meet the NCHC’s criteria. None of the bills have received enough support to advance out of committee. Some bills have been reintroduced each year for several years, but have not gained broad support.
The HCAC has reviewed the health care plan proposals by the leading presidential candidates. None of the candidates have provided enough details to satisfactorily evaluate them. The Democratic candidates favor plans based on providing subsidies to purchase health insurance from existing suppliers, either directly or through some modification of FEHB. The Republican candidates’ plans are all based on Health Savings Plans and tax credits; none of which can be considered Universal Health Care.
The HCAC recommended that the NRLN concentrate in 2008 on fixes to Medicare like prescription drugs and Medicare buy-in for retirees under age 65. The committee will continue to monitor Congress’ bills and presidential candidate plans.
Bill reported to the group that a new committee has been formed, the NRLN Pension Advisory Committee (NPAC), under the chairmanship of Frank Minter who has substantial financial experience. The preliminary focus of the committee will be on defined benefit and other pension plans, Social Security retirement income, and mergers/acquisitions and foreign ownership impact on U.S. retirees’ pensions.
Advocates For Medicare/Social Security And AFL-CIO Speak
The afternoon session started with presentations concerning the problems facing Medicare by Barbara Kennelly, former Congresswoman from Connecticut and now the President and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. Also at this session was JoAnn Volk representing the AFL-CIO. They stated that the fastest growing segment of uninsured Americans is retirees between the ages of 55 and 64 (estimated currently at 4 million). They discussed the rising number of retirees being enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans (about 20% of all Medicare participants).
Ms. Kennelly stated on the recent publishing of a rule by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that she believes there should not be discrimination against those age 65 and older Medicare-eligible retirees. However, Ms. Volk stated that the AFL-CIO supports the EEOC rule as a possible way to help protect health care benefits for younger retirees.
House And Senate Staff Members Share Their Views
The next panel of Michelle Varnhagen from Representative George Miller’s staff (House Education and Labor Committee Chairperson) and Michelle Evermore from Senator Tom Harkin’s staff (Appropriations Committee Member) discussed the 2006 Pension Reform Act. Suggestions were made from the audience on what needs to be amended in the 2006 Act to stop corporations from using defined pension plan funds to cover buy-outs and severance payments. With Defined Pension plans being replaced with 401K plans, the Congressional staffers estimated that 50 million workers now have only 401K plans. The extent of administrative fees charged by the managers of these 401K plans are unknown to as many as 80% of workers and retirees in these plans. The lack of accurate disclosure of these administrative charges leads to a possible source of additional profit to fund managers and employers. Both of these panelists see limited action in 2008 on pension and health care reform. But, they see some opportunity this year for the NRLN to submit its proposals to correct omissions from the 2006 Act.
Ms. Varnhagen said that a 1% difference in 401K fees over 30 years could make a 30% difference in dollars available for retirement. She said a General Accounting Office study reported that 37 percent of workers would never get anything from a 401K during retirement years because of withdrawals or plan losses during their working careers.
Ms. Evermore acknowledged that there are profitable companies that are freezing their defined benefits pension plans. She said that 401K plans are normally insufficient to provide sustained income during retirement.
McCain For President Adviser Talks About Health Care
Although advisors to all leading presidential candidates were invited to participate on a panel, only the health care advisor to the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain spoke. Dr. Doug Holtz-Eakin, Senior Economic Policy Advisor, McCain 2008, reported that Senator McCain is concerned about health care for all Americans. He said that the Senator is opposed to a single payer system. The Senator is focused on the overall health care costs and wants to bring those costs under control. The Senator believes its is imperative for Congress to do “something” about health care. This could include the streamlining of basic health care; establish payment for performance measurements; insurance market reform, and tax credits.
Presentations Explain Capwiz, Grassroots Network And Communications Media
The last three presentations of the day dealt with the effectiveness of using Capwiz to communicate with elected representatives; the overall security of the grassroots network database in Capwiz; growing the grassroots network; and using the FOCUS newsletter and the NRLN website for more effective communications. Jason Janicki, from Capitol Advantage the supplier of the Capwiz system, explained that Americans send annually more than 200 million emails to members of Congress. Emails have become the preferred way to write to elected representatives as compared to sending letters through the U.S. Mail. Jason showed slides of the NRLN Capwiz web pages and explained how Action Alerts and sample letters can be made more effective. He also explained the safeguards for protecting names, email addresses and other contact information stored in the NRLN’s Capwiz database. He noted that Capwiz has never had a security breach.
Bob Martina, who is a new NRLN board member serving as Vice President, Grassroots Network, made a presentation about how the grassroots network is composed of Capwiz “subscribers.” It is through the grassroots advocates that members of Congress learn from their constituents about the NRLN’s legislative agenda and positions on retiree issues. From this group of grassroots advocates volunteers are recruited to serve as state and Congressional district leaders. Bob identified states and districts where leaders have been identified and where they are still needed. He also showed how board members serving as Regional Vice Presidents would interface with the grassroots network.
Ed Beltram, NRLN Vice President, Communications, made a presentation on plans for enhancing communications with NRLN members through emails, the Focus Newsletter and the NRLN website. He also made a presentation prepared by Joe Sciulli, the NRLN Webmaster, on the traffic to the NRLN website at www.nrln.org and enhancements being made to the website’s home page.
NRLN Board Meeting Addresses Policies And Objectives
The NRLN board meeting on January 24th opened with three new board members in attendance: Ralph Maly, Communications Workers of America Vice President representing the CWA Retired Members Council; Bob Martina, representing the Lucent Retirees Organization, and Ray Sternot, representing the Association of Ameritech/SBC Retirees. While the LRO and AASBCR have been affiliated with the NRLN for a number of years, the CWA Retired Members Council with its 158,000 members is a new NRLN member association.
President Bill Kadereit announced that Dick Ciocca, a Prudential retiree, had accepted appointment as President of the NRLN Agency. This Board manages the NRLN’s subsidiary that so far offers life insurance and property and casualty insurance to NRLN members at group rates. Other Board members are Bob Foresta, Chuck Gilbert, a Pacific Bell retiree, Bill Kadereit and John Leasher, a Johns Manville retiree.