Dear Seniors:

As you may know, corporate cutbacks on retiree health care have reached intolerable proportions. Many of you have had to absorb a steep decline in your standard of living to pay the out-of-pocket costs of obtaining individual health insurance coverage. Even worse, retirees with pre-existing medical conditions may not be able to obtain, or afford, any new coverage at all.

To address this critical issue I decided to reintroduce the Emergency Retiree Health Benefits Protection Act (H.R.1322). This legislation would prohibit employers from making post-retirement cancellations or reductions of health benefits that you may have been entitled to when you retired. In addition, unless the employer can demonstrate substantial business hardship, the bill would obligate employers to restore benefits taken away after retirement.

A December 2006 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit, private operating foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the U.S., noted that between 2005 and 2006 a majority of employers surveyed increased “retiree contributions to premiums” and a quarter increased “retiree out-of-pocket limits,” for pre-65 retirees. These statistics indicate some of you are paying more into the insurance benefit system and getting less out of it, highlighting the need for the Emergency Retiree Health Benefits Protection Act.

Basic fairness dictates that we ensure that the promises that have been made to those whose life’s efforts have contributed to the great economic prosperity our nation enjoys are kept. We can ill afford the collapse of private sector retiree health initiatives because retirees no longer have faith in the employers’ promises.

My bill is intended to stem the tide of post-retirement cutbacks - or complete elimination - of healthcare benefits affecting millions of Americans and their families. It is long past time we held employers accountable.

For more information about the bill and retirees’ efforts to secure health benefits, please visit my website at http://tierney.house.gov/ . Alternatively, if you need additional assistance, please call Cheryl Gresek, Constituent Service Representative, in the Office of Congressman John Tierney at 1-978-531-1669.

Sincerely,

Congressman John Tierney