you can find e-mail information for your representative at:

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

NEW SENATE LEGISLATION REGARDING WEP AND GPO:                    3/6/23

from David Cook, UPMAR Legislative Chairman

U.S. Senators Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Susan Collins (R-ME) reintroduced bipartisan legislation that would ensure public sector workers and their families can receive full Social Security benefits after two previous statutes reduced them. The Senators’ bill, the Social Security Fairness Act, would repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and the Government Pension Offset (GPO) from the Social Security Act. For more information go to: www.senate.gov

EQUAL COLA ACT: from Dave Cook. UPMAR Legislative Chairman

U.S. Representative Gerry Connolly. 11th District of Virginia has introduced H.R.866 - To amend title 5, United States Code, to achieve parity between the cost-of-living adjustment with respect to an annuity under the Federal Employees Retirement System and an annuity under the Civil Service Retirement System, and for other purposes. The Equal COLA Act would make the annual COLA for both the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) equivalent to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W). This change would institute long-overdue parity between the two federal retirement systems and result in a more just retirement benefits system for all federal workers.

Fr more information go to: www.house.gov

ACTION NEEDED: from David Cook, UPMAR Legislative Chairman   01/21/2023

Attention Active and Retired Members. We need to take action now to push our Representatives to pass long overdue legislation regarding WEB and GPO. Contact your representatives now, do not wait for someone else to do it. Please use the sample message below that I received from Michael Silvestri, Postmaster Retired New York: As your constituent, a retired federal employee, and a member of the United Postmasters and Managers of America (UPMA), I urge you to cosponsor legislation to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO), the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023, H.R. 82. H.R. 82 would end unfair policies that significantly reduce or eliminate earned Social Security benefits for myself, and millions of other federal or state and local government retirees, simply because we earned a pension from our public service. WEP reduces the primary Social Security benefit, earned separately through covered (e.g. private sector) work. GPO reduces spousal and survivor benefits by two-thirds of a government pension earned through work in a system separate from Social Security. Our Social Security benefits were earned through hard work, and we deserve the full amount. I strongly urge you to support repeal of the WEP and GPO in the 118th Congress, by cosponsoring the Social Security Fairness Act of 2023, H.R. 82, and urging leadership to bring it to the floor for a vote. Thank you for your consideration of my views. I look forward to your response. 

NEW YEAR, NEW OPPORTUNITY:  From David Cook, UPMAR Legislative Chairman

Representative Garret Graves (R-La) has introduced a new Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 with the same bill number H.R.82 as last year's bill. The bill has 54 co-sponsors as of today 1/14/23. Please contact your Representatives to sign on. There are 75 new Representatives in the House. Go to www.house.gov for more information.  

Midterms are now behind us. The new 118^th US Congress will convene on January 3rd, 2023. Therefore, this Legislative Summit is imperative. UPMA must form new relationships and nurture current ones. Your Legislative Team is in the midst of preparations, so please plan on attending Arlington, VA, March 19-22, 2023.

from David Cook

WEP/GPO Hearing for H.R. 82 in Ways and Means:

H.R. 82, the bill to repeal the WEP and GPO has enough co-sponsors to require a floor vote. Instead, the leadership of the Ways and Means Committee has decided to discuss the bill at a meeting this Tuesday at 10:00 AM EDT.  Please take a minute and contact your lawmakers. Contact me if I can help. Here is the link to read the urgent details, PLUS a sample letter, PLUS a link to send the letter to every legislator at one time. I strongly urge all members to send this email this morning:

H.R. 82 ON THE LINE TUESDAY 9/20/22: 

for additional information on budgetary costs and bill summary

open the following  link:

 The GPO reduces or eliminates the Social Security benefit due to a spouse who is receiving an 
annuity from a job where he or she didn’t pay Social Security taxes, for example, those receiving 
a CSRS annuity. If you are one of them, your Social Security spousal benefit will be reduced by 
$2 for every $3 you receive in your CSRS annuity. 
     The larger your CSRS annuity, the greater the impact it will have on your Social Security spousal benefit—up to and including the point that it will eliminate that benefit.
For example, if you had a monthly CSRS annuity of $1,500 and would get a Social Security spousal benefit of $900, you wouldn’t receive anything from Social Security. That’s because two-thirds of $1,500 is $1,000. Subtracting that from $900 would leave you with nothing.
     Why would the government treat federal employees like that? Here’s the justification. The Social Security System was designed to provide a modest level of financial security for those who didn’t work or who had earned little during their working life. In other words, spousal benefits weren’t designed to enrich the benefits of working couples who were both entitled to a Social Security benefit. When one of them is eligible for both an earned Social Security benefit and a spousal benefit, he or she only gets the higher of the two, not both.
     Before the law was changed, anyone covered by CSRS who was married to someone covered by Social Security was entitled to receive both a full CSRS annuity and a full Social Security spousal benefit. However, in 1982 the Congress decided that an employee who was in a retirement system where he wasn’t paying Social Security taxes was enjoying an unfair advantage. So, it changed the law.
     The best explanation for the reason behind the change comes from the Social Security Administration, which has developed a pair of clarifying examples: Bill Smith collects a Social Security benefit of $600 per month. His wife, Mary, is potentially eligible for a wife’s benefit up to 50 percent of Bill’s, or $300. However, Mary also worked and paid into Social Security, qualifying for her own retirement benefit of $400. She will not receive any wife’s benefits because her $400 retirement benefit, in effect, offsets her $300 wife’s benefit.
     Bill’s neighbor, Tom, also gets a Social Security benefit of $600 per month. But his wife, Nancy, 
worked for the federal government, instead of a job where she paid Social Security taxes, and 
earned a civil service pension of $800 per month. Before the government annuity offset provisions were in place, Nancy would have been eligible for both her $800 civil service pension and a $300 wife’s benefit on Tom’s Social Security record. With the offset provision in place, Nancy does not qualify for a wife’s benefits from Social Security, so now she is treated the same as Mary.
     As with the Windfall Elimination Provision , it is commonly argued that  the GPO should be eliminated because it was some kind of accident or unintended consequence of a not well thought out change in law during the Social Security reforms of the 1980s. Actually, the GPO was a deliberate choice; Congress acted to take away what it considered to be an unfair advantage. As with the WEP, knowing that is no comfort to those of you who are feeling its effect, or will on retiring in the future. But that’s the law unless and until it is changed. 
     While there has been movement in Congress lately to repeal or soften both the WEP and the GPO, I suggest you not hold your breath in hoping. Those proposals have circulated since shortly after those provisions were enacted nearly four decades ago. Instead, plan as though they will remain in effect. Make sure that the combination of your CSRS and your Social Security benefit plus your other savings and investments will be sufficient to meet your retirement needs.

You can reach Ted Gedeon at: tgedeon@windstream.net

AND A BIG LEGISLATIVE UPDATE: Dave Cook, UPMAR Legislative Chair
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! Many of you have worked diligently to contact your representatives and encourage support of H. R. 82, and we have succeeded! Thank you! We have reached 290 sponsors; fantastic work by everyone. Just another example of how UPMA Members stick together until the mission is accomplished! Hopefully the bill will come to the floor. Now, we need to contact our Senators to sponsor S. 1302 Social Security Fairness Act. We already have 40 sponsors… our work has just begun, but we don’t give up! Thank you!

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POSTAL REFORM-FEHBP                                             5/23/2022

Postal Service Health Benefits Program

Under the Postal Service Reform Act, the Office of Personnel Management may now contract with carriers to offer health benefits as described, creating the Postal Service Health Benefits Program within the FEHBP.

In the contract year beginning January 2023, the program shall ‘‘to the greatest extent practicable” with respect to
each plan provided by a carrier in which the total enrollment includes 1,500 or more enrollees who are Postal Service employees or Postal Service annuitants, have a plan offered by that carrier with equivalent benefits and cost-sharing requirements. The exception is the director of OPM may exempt any comprehensive medical plan from this requirement and include plans offered by any other carrier determined appropriate by OPM.

Requirement of Medicare Enrollment for Certain Annuitants and Their Family Members

A Postal Service Medicare-covered annuitant may not enroll in a program plan unless the annuitant is entitled to benefits under Medicare Part A and enrolled in Medicare Part B.

If a Postal Service annuitant who is entitled to benefits under Medicare Part A and required under the program to enroll in Medicare Part B has a family member who is an “eligible for Medicare individual,” that member of the family may not enroll under the program unless that member of the family is entitled to benefits under Medicare Part A and enrolled in Medicare Part B.

Exceptions

In general, the requirements as applicable shall not apply with respect to an individual in the following cases:

n Postal Service Annuitants—As of Jan. 1, 2025, the individual is a Postal Service annuitant who is not entitled both to benefits under Medicare Part A and enrolled in Medicare Part B.

n Current Employees Aged 64 and Over—As of Jan. 1, 2025, the individual is a Postal Service employee and at least 64 years of age.

n Postal Service Medicare-Covered Annuitants and Family Members Living Abroad

n Postal Service Medicare-Covered Annuitants and Family Members Enrolled under VA Coverage (Veterans Affairs)

n Postal Service Medicare-Covered Annuitants and Family Members Eligible For IHS Health Services (Indian Health Service)

Medicare Special Enrollment Period. If a qualified individual is not enrolled under Part B, the individual may elect to be enrolled during a special enrollment period in a six-month period beginning on April 1, 2024. The coverage period will commence on Jan. 1, 2025.

Medicare Coordination. In general, OPM shall require each program plan to provide benefits for covered Medicare individuals pursuant to a coordination of benefits method approved by OPM.

Health Benefits Education Program. In general, the Education Program must begin no later than 18 months after enactment. The Joint Program uses OPM, the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Congress appropriated approximately $94 million to fund the Education Program.

For additional information, please contact Eagle Care at 512-859-5662 or info@eaglecarehealth.com.

A message from Ted Gedeon                                               8/6/22

I have been involved with legislative issues for a while now and thought that I’ve seen just about everything but never in my wildest dreams have I believed that Congress would agree to pass 2 bills which would  benefit  Postal employees and retirees in one year.

      Now I admit, I am getting a little bit ahead of myself in assuming that HR-82, the Social Security Reform Act, will pass in this legislative year, but thanks to the efforts of many of you in gathering enough co-sponsors, it will be presented to the House floor for a vote in September with another vote following shortly to ratify it in the Senate. The bill has enough support in both the House and the Senate to pass without any issues.  

     2022 will go down as a momentous year for us legislatively because of a Postal Reform Bill finally becoming law.  But with the addition of a repeal of WEP/GPO contained in HR-82, this year will become truly EPIC!! 

Both Postal Reform and the repeal of WEP/GPO have been on the top of our legislative agenda for years without any movement or support from our legislators in Washington DC, but our success this year proves the point that to succeed in politics you must be persistent and never give up the battle.

     THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS BEEN A PART OF ADVOCATING FOR THESE ISSUES!! 

      It has truly been a long time in coming.

Postal Service Reform Act of 2022     from NARFE news   3/19/2022

         Comparison of PSHB and FEHB
The Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 creates a new Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) program within the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program starting in January 2025. All postal employees and postal annuitants will be offered their earned health benefits through the PSHB program at that time.
The PSHB is designed to provide plans that mirror current FEHB plans but with different rates to reflect a separate, postal-only risk pool and cost savings accrued from increased Medicare integration.
Actuarial analysis of the new PSHB program found that it should lower average costs of coverage, and, therefore, plan premiums, for both PSHB and FEHB program plans, benefitting postal and nonpostal enrollees. As such, PSHB plans should provide the same coverage to postal employees and retirees, but with lower premiums.

         Open the following link for the complete text...

POSTAL REFORM BILL                                                       3/14/2022

   As most of you already know, the Postal Reform Bill passed the Senate last week and is waiting for the Presidents signature to become law. There have been several questions raised about the new Postal-only Health Plan and who will be covered by it.  It is my understanding that all working employees will be switched to the new plan unless they are 64 years old or older by the time the new plan takes effect in 2025. Those 64 or older  would have a choice to stay in the old FEHPB plans and NOT take Medicare Part B when they retire, or if they choose to take Part B, they will be placed into  the new Postal only plans.  

   Anyone already retired who has Part B will be switched to the new Postal Plan as well. Any retiree who has not taken Part B will remain in the current FEHPB plans. 

However anyone retired who is not participating in Part B will be given an opportunity to join Part B with no late penalty incurred, and they will be switched to the new Postal Plans. I hope this answers some of the questions that people have. I know it’s confusing…

Ted Gedeon

POSTAL REFORM ACT PASSES HOUSE: 

from Dave Cook, UPMAR Legislative Chair

The 2021 Postal Reform Act (H.R. 3076) won sweeping bipartisan support, a notable victory for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who have for more than 10 years sought to deliver the core elements of the bill for USPS. Congress last passed major postal reform in 2006, though the agency’s finances collapsed shortly thereafter and lawmakers have struggled to address the situation ever since. The new measure now heads to the Senate, where it already has broad bipartisan support and a vote is expected in short order.  To read more: https://www.govexec.com/management/2022/02/house-has-passed-postal-reform-reaching-new-milestone-decade-long-effort-reshape-usps/361734/