RETIREES IN ACTION A message from PEF Retirees President Jim Carr Lots to lose in battle to repeal health reform Health care for retirees and seniors continues to be a political football. The new political majority in the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to repeal the historic health care reform law (Affordable Care Act) signed into law March 23, 2010. They put a higher premium on scoring political points than on providing 32 million people, including seniors, improved access to health care. The recent action taken to repeal health care reform is a terrible injustice to hard-working Americans, their families, and to senior citizens living on fixed incomes. Although NYSHIP members have additional protections, repealing the Affordable Care Act would negatively affect most seniors by: • Revoking significant drug discounts for Medicare beneficiaries who fall into the Part D doughnut hole; • Revoking free annual check ups and preventive screenings; • Revoking subsidies for employers who provide health care coverage for their retirees; and • Revoking Medicaid options which allow older Americans with chronic conditions to live at home, instead of in ­nursing homes. If that’s not bad enough, repeal also would take away: • The right to add our young adult children to our family health care coverage (even for those of us in NYSHIP); • Protection against being dropped by an insurance company for getting sick; and • Increased efforts to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicare. Furthermore, the 2010 law extends Medicare solvency by 12 years, and also cuts the federal deficit by $230 billion over the first 10 years and more than $1 trillion in the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Repealing the law would not only hurt seniors, it would damage Medicare’s finances and boost our nation’s deficit. Why try to repeal this law? Where’s the common sense? Does concern for the profits of the health insurance industry trump concern for our welfare? Is this America? Many state and federal issues can affect us. We must be vigilant and pay attention to what our elected officials say and do. We can’t assume anything we have is safe. Like it or not, public employees and retirees have become scapegoats for all that’s wrong in these difficult economic times. Send your e-mail address to jtropiano@pef.org to get PEF Retirees news alerts

The Communicator Letters policy We welcome letters to the editor about union issues and events relevant to PEF's diverse membership. All letters are subject to editing for space, fairness and good taste. Please keep them brief (up to one page, double-spaced or a maximum of 250 words), and please include your name and phone number for verification. Send letters to thecommunicator@pef.org: The Communicator Public Employees Federation P.O. Box 12414 Albany, N.Y. 12212-2414 Email to Sherry Halbrook, Editor or Darcy Wells, Editor-In Chief