Health care reform should include protections for retiree health care benefits

The executive director of a national retiree advocacy group has called proposals for nationalized health care (HR 3200) a "back-door bailout" that would enable companies to skip out on fiscal obligations to retirees and stick the taxpayers with the bill.

In a newly released interactive video campaign entitled "Broken Promises," Paul Miller, executive director of the 55,000 member ProtectSeniors.Org (www.ProtectSeniors.Org), states that many corporations support some sort of nationalized health care because it provides them with a way to avoid paying post retirement health benefits owed to their former employees in exchange for lower salaries and less paid time off.

In "Broken Promises," retirees express their frustration at a trend which has seen many corporations cut back or entirely eliminate health care benefits that had been earned by retirees. The project lets retirees nationally add their own video.

Corporate retirees were particularly bitter about their health benefits being called "legacy costs" by certain economists, politicians and the media. They point out that employers constantly told them to consider the value of their post employment retirement benefits, including health care coverage as part of their total compensation package. Post retirement health benefits were used as an incentive to attract new employees at a lower pay rate, as an incentive during their careers and to induce older employees to retire early.

Janice Winston, a retiree from Philadelphia, talks about how retiree health care benefits should enjoy the same protections as pensions.

C. William Jones, president of the Association of BellTel Retirees (www.BellTelRetirees.org), talks about the predicament facing those who are too young for Medicare and earn too much for Medicaid.

ProtectSeniors.Org wants any health care reform to include protections for earned retiree health care benefits. The organization is advocating for the passage of or inclusion of the Emergency Retiree Health Benefits Protection Act (HR 1322) which prohibits employers from making post retirement cancellations or reductions in health benefits that retirees earned while they were working.