President Trump has repeatedly called for Congress to suspend the payroll tax for the rest of 2020 as an economic stimulus due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Bill Kedereit
The Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds issued their 2020 annual report to Congress, the President and the public on April 22. Once again, the news was not good. Here are key points from the Trustees report:
If you are one of the 64 million people on Social Security you will continue to receive your monthly payment as usual in the U.S. mail or direct deposit, according to the Social Security Administration. (https://www.ssa.gov/)
The House of Representatives on Friday passed the $2 trillion Coronavirus emergency relief bill that was passed by the Senate Wednesday night. President Donald Trump immediately signed the legislation into law.
A provision in the bill provides for the 2020 waiver on Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) for IRAs and 401(k)s. I want to thank NRLN members who responded to Thursday’s Action Alert and emailed letters to their U.S. Representative requesting the House retain the RMD waiver that was included in the Senate bill.
The House approved the Senate’s stimulus package by voice vote. The legislation will provide payments of up to $1,200 to millions of Americans, bolster unemployment benefits, offer loans, grants and tax breaks to businesses, large and small, and send billions more to states, local governments and the nation’s healthcare system. Click here to read articles about the legislation at IN THE NEWS on the NRLN website home page.
I hope you have been reading the NRLN’s messages on the Coronavirus. Click here to access the messages. As we come across more information that would be useful to you we will continue to share it. Please follow the Center for Disease Control (www.CDC.gov) guidelines which are intended to keep us safe from the Coronavirus.
Bill Kadereit, President
National Retiree Legislative Network
NRLN President’s Forum House Passes Senate’s Relief Bill with RMD Waiver The House of Representatives on Friday passed the $2 trillion Coronavirus emergency relief bill that was passed by the Senate Wednesday night. President Donald Trump immediately signed the legislation into law.
A provision in the bill provides for the 2020 waiver on Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) for IRAs and 401(k)s. I want to thank NRLN members who responded to Thursday’s Action Alert and emailed letters to their U.S. Representative requesting the House retain the RMD waiver that was included in the Senate bill.
The House approved the Senate’s stimulus package by voice vote. The legislation will provide payments of up to $1,200 to millions of Americans, bolster unemployment benefits, offer loans, grants and tax breaks to businesses, large and small, and send billions more to states, local governments and the nation’s healthcare system. Click here to read articles about the legislation at IN THE NEWS on the NRLN website home page.
I hope you have been reading the NRLN’s messages on the Coronavirus. Click here to access the messages. As we come across more information that would be useful to you we will continue to share it.
Please follow the Center for Disease Control (www.CDC.gov) guidelines which are intended to keep us safe from the Coronavirus.
Bill Kadereit, President
National Retiree Legislative Network
Letters were emailed on Sunday, March 22, to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi requesting that the next Coronavirus economic stimulus include a 2020 waiver for Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) for Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) and 401(k)s.
Copies of my letters were also emailed to the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee plus Wendell Priumus, Senior Healthcare and Budget Policy Adviser to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is familiar with the NRLN from meetings during our two 2018 Fly-Ins to Washington, DC.
If you are age 72 or older and have an IRA and/or 401(k), you know RMDs are based on the value of IRAs and 401(k)s as of December 31, 2019. My letters pointed out that at the end of last year, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 28,462.14, the S&P 500 closed at 3,221.29, and
the Nasdaq Composite Index closed at 8,945.99. On Friday, March 20, 2020, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 19,173.98; the S&P 500 closed at 2,304.92, and the Nasdaq Composite Index closed at 6,879.52.
The Wall Street week that ended March 20, 2020 was the market’s worst week since the financial crisis of 2008. Taking an RMD now would be a financial disaster and later in the year will most likely be a significant loss for anyone, especially retirees invested in the market to serve as much needed income.
I told Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Pelosi that our nation’s seniors who are facing the threats of the Coronavirus could use some good news in learning that RMDs will be waived in 2020. I requested if they do not consider the economic stimulus plan legislation the suitable place for the RMD waiver, the NRLN looks to their leadership to make in happen by some other means. Should Congress fail to provide the RMD waiver, the NRLN will ask President Trump to issue an executive order or instruct Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to take action. If necessary, an NRLN Action Alert will be issued for you to write to your members of Congress.
Bill Kadereit, President
National Retiree Legislative Network
The focus of the lobbying efforts in Washington, DC during the NRLN Annual Leadership Conference, February 24 – 26, 2020, were opposing Medicare privatization, legislation to reduce the cost of prescription drugs and protecting retirees’ pensions.
Following Monday’s NRLN Board of Directors meeting open to attendees was an afternoon session which provided briefings on the lobbying issues and featured a guest speaker with considerable expertise on Medicare, Medicare Advantage and Prescription Drugs.
Alyson Parker, NRLN Executive Director, reported that two pension protection issues advocated by the NRLN could be included in a bill that is expected to be introduced this year. Also, it is uncertain whether the House of Representatives and the Senate can reach agreement this election year on a comprehensive bill to reduce the price of prescription drugs.
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 drugmakers’ tactics that obstruct generic drugs from coming to market. Americans should be allowed to import of safe and less expensive drugs from Canada. The NRLN 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. Our proposal includes legislative language.
Guest Speaker – Tricia Neuman, Senior Vice President of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and Director of the Foundation’s Program on Medicare Policy was the guest speaker. She used a PowerPoint presentation to explain The Role of Private Plans in Medicare. Today 34% of the Medicare population is enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan.
She also discussed Prescription Drug Costs. Total retail prescription drug spending in the U.S. in 2005 was $205 billion, was $234 billion in 2017 (latest data available) and is projected to reach $605 billion in 2026.
KFF’s research has identified, just as the NRLN has, the two major bills in Congress on prescription drug prices. They are the H.R. 3: Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act of 2019 which was passed by the House on December 12, 2019 and S. 2543: Prescription Drug Pricing Reduction Act of 2019 which has been approved by the Senate Finance Committee.
The NRLN advocated on Capitol Hill for the Senate to pass S. 2543 and go to a conference committee with H.R. 3 with the hope of seeing a compromise bill that both the House and Senate would pass and be signed into law by the president.
Medicare Privatization – NRLN President Bill Kadereit scheduled his briefing on to follow the KFF presentation. His presentation was titled, Medicare Privatization – A Bait and Switch Failure and
Government Scandal. It focused on how the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) is giving taxpayer subsidies to private insurance companies for Medicare Advantage (MA) plans as a move toward the privatization of Medicare. The NRLN oppose the use of MA plans to privatize Medicare.
After years of healthcare insurers taking more than $300 billion in taxpayer subsidies, Medicare Advantage plans have not shown they can be cost-competitive with original Medicare A & B Fee-For- Service. Original Medicare carries a 2 percent overhead while Medicare Advantage plans has around 15 percent for overhead and profits. Congress has funded 19 new special benefits in 2020 for Medicare Advantage plans that cover 22 million enrollees, but the special benefits are denied to 42 million participants in original Medicare. This is discriminatory and creates a false image that MA plans have been or can be successful at reducing costs or increasing longevity.
Kadereit also discussed letters signed by 75 percent of members of Congress supporting Medicare Advantage plans. The letters stemmed from efforts by the Better Medicare Alliance, a Washington, DC advocacy organization primarily funded by the insurance companies who sell Medicare Advantage plans. The NRLN is working on pulling together a coalition of organizations that support original Medicare to expose the Senators and Representatives misguided support for Medicare Advantage.
During the briefing session, an article in the February 21 New York Times was passed around the room. The story featured the decision of a retiree to select a Medicare Advantage plan when he was healthy at age 65, Last November, at age 72, he was diagnosed with aggressive bladder cancer. The doctor he determined was the best local specialist for his condition was not in his network. He decided he wanted to switch to original Medicare for 2020 — a move that would allow him to see nearly any healthcare provider he chose.
That was when he ran up against one of the least understood implications of selecting Medicare Advantage when enrolling in Medicare: the decision is effectively irrevocable. Click here to read the article.
Attendees, carrying folders with NRLN talking points, had more than two dozen appointments on Tuesday and Wednesday. If you want to read the Talking Points that were used in the Capitol Hill appointments.
Click on these headlines:
— Medicare Privatization – A Bait and Switch Failure and Government Scandal
— Congress Must Act to Reduce Price of Prescription Drugs – Talk Is Cheap – Drugs Are Not!
— Pension Plan De-risking: Fiduciary Protection of Retirees
— Pension Plan Risks in Mergers, Acquisitions and Spin-offs
Click here to see photos taken during appointments.
The upcoming spring NRLN FOCUS newsletter will have an article with more details about the meeting in Washington, DC.
Bill Kadereit, President
National Retiree Legislative Network
Leaders of the NRLN, Retiree Associations and NRLN Chapters will be in Washington, DC, February 24-26 to lobby Congress about prescription drug pricing; protecting retirees in pension plan de-risking; corporate mergers, acquisitions, and spin-offs; pension recoupment and life insurance protection. Prior to going on Capitol Hill, attendees will be briefed on these issues along with a presentation I will make to prepare them to educate members of Congress and their staffs on Medicare Privatization, A Bait and Switch Failure!
I’ve done a video that covers much of the presentation I will make at our briefing session. Go to www.nrln.org or www.facebook.com/nrln1 to view the video.
Current and past Congresses and administrations have known the Medicare funding crises was coming but did not focus on cost-reducing prescription drugs, medical equipment and services purchased from hospitals, doctors and others.
Instead, they used rebates (the Bait) to subsidize insurance company benefits that tempt those turning age 65 and current original Medicare enrollees to buy Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, knowing that eventually all costs will have to be absorbed by these new plans thus switching costs off the federal budget to those over age 65 (the Switch).
Congress funded 19 new benefits for 20 million MA plan enrollees in 2020 that are denied to 40 million in original Medicare. A Feb. 5, 2020 letter signed by 338 members of Congress from both parties urged the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Administrator to add more benefits to MA plans in 2021.
This is discrimination and steps outside the reality that Medicare C (MA plans) is Medicare, managed by private insurers and funded by the CMS using our tax dollars. Rebates to insurance companies are sucking the life out of the original Medicare Part A trust and the Part B and D trust.
I encourage you watch the video and help us tell Congress to “grandfather” all present MA plan enrollees and no longer award these phony rebates. Or, make all subsidized Medicare benefits available to all Medicare beneficiaries. Click here to compose your own message to email to your members of Congress.
Bill Kedereit, President
National Retiree Legislative Network
For more than three years I have been doing research and writing about Medicare and Medicare Advantage. I encourage you to view my video, “What Caused the Medicare Financial Crisis” posted on the NRLN website home page at www.nrln.org. This is Part 1 of a 5-part series on Medicare Privatization that is intended to inform you and members of Congress on this looming crisis.
The NRLN supports private insurance competition for Medicare’s insurance business, but only the American way, without public tax dollars being used to subsidize insurance companies’ overhead and profit. After years of insurers taking over $300 billion in taxpayer subsidies, Medicare Advantage plans, offering new special benefits, have not shown they can be competitive with original Medicare A & B Fee- For-Service (FFS) without government subsidies.
These new benefits apply only to Medicare Advantage plans that cover up to 20 million enrollees but are denied to 40 million in original Medicare A & B who may need the same benefit to stay alive.
There is a coming Medicare financial crises. The reaction from many members of Congress in both parties is to privatize Medicare to avoid being held accountable. Instead, they dole-out our tax dollars to finance healthcare insurers’ profits.
The NRLN’s # 1 goal is to protect retirees in Medicare Advantage HMO and local PPO plans from being victimized by new and increased premiums, deductibles, copays, and coinsurance that are inevitable!
Bill Kedereit, President
National Retiree Legislative Network
Because Americans receive so much of their news on TV, the NRLN has launched a 2020 video series that is posted on the NRLN website at www.nrln.org and on www.Facebook.com/nrln1. I’m the NRLN on-camera person, at least for the initial series of videos. (View the image from beginning of video.)
Probably most of our members remember Walter Cronkite, the CBS Evening News anchorman from 1962-1981. Don’t expect that smooth delivery from me. Since the NRLN is frugal with our member’s contribution dollars, in my garage I painted a blue screen background for the projected images, but that didn’t work so I had to buy a regulation size green screen and lighting, and used my son’s camera for the video.
The first video is ready for you to view. If you care to make comments or have questions, click
contact@nrln.org. I talk about the purpose of the NRLN, provide information that is available on our website and discuss and show the website’s primary navigation icons, such as signing up to receive NRLN emails and responding to our Action Alerts.
Near the end of the video, I provide a look ahead on what will be coming in our video series. Next will be a four-part provocative series on the privatization of Medicare. After that, we will tackle Prescription Drug pricing, Social Security and other subjects.
I close the video by talking about the American Retirees Education Foundation, the NRLN’s research and education partner.
We encourage feedback and comments. In fact, we will soon unveil a podcast where we hope to discuss new information and dialogue about member concerns and answer questions involving retiree benefits and the need for better representation and effective legislation from our elected members of congress and the executive branch.
Please “tune in”.
Bill Kadereit, President
National Retiree Legislative Network