• Keep Up the Heat on Budget Bill; Call Now on
  Feb. 1 Vote
• States Step in To Deal With Medicare Mess
• Whose State of the Union?
• Sweeney Outlines Ambitious Pro-Worker Agenda
• Unions Promote Bills Requiring Large Employers
  To Spend More on Employee Health Insurance
• AFT Retirees Weigh in To Include More Drugs in Part D
• AFT Vice President Paul Cole Retires
• Doctors Call for Ban on Drug Company Gifts
• Employer Match Provides Little Incentive To Contribute to 401(k)-Type Pension Plans
• AFT PLUS Helps You Save With Pet Insurance
• Quote of Note: Drug Company Promotions
• Web Site of the Week: http://www.dtv.gov  

Keep Up the Heat on Budget Bill; Call Now on
Feb. 1 Vote
In the days leading up to an expected House of Representatives vote Feb. 1 on the budget reconciliation bill, House members have been hearing from their AFT constituents who object to the bill's deep cuts in student loans, Medicaid and other vital domestic programs while preserving tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. In addition to the cuts outlined, the bill also makes it harder to seniors to receive long-term care, cuts child support enforcement, and forces states to reduce child care assistance to hundreds of thousands of low-income working families. Despite strong public opposition, Republican leaders are insisting upon these deep cuts to offset $70 billion in new tax cuts that will go largely to wealthy people. The bill also would prevent anyone with equity in a home of more than $500,000 from qualifying for Medicaid. New rules would extend the "lookback" period for asset transfers for seniors seeking Medicaid long-term care coverage from three years to five, and would change the date that the asset-transfer penalty begins from the day the gift was made to the day of the Medicaid application. The 13,500-strong AFT e-Activist network and the union's Activists for Congressional Education (ACE) program, groups of activist AFT members who regularly visit with their representatives and senators, have both weighed in heavily on the bill. After receiving numerous letters from AFT activists and meeting with AFT constituents through ACE, Rep. Rob Simmons (R-Conn.) announced on Jan. 25 that he will be breaking with his party and voting against the budget reconciliation bill. In his press release, Simmons specifically cited concerns expressed by his AFT constituents in influencing his decision. AFT activists are asked to keep up the good work and urge their members of Congress to oppose the bill, which would cut some $40 billion from programs such as student loans and Medicaid. Please call your U.S. representative now and urge him or her to oppose the budget reconciliation bill when it comes up for a vote Feb. 1. You can reach the U.S. Capitol switchboard, which will connect you to your representative’s office, via the AFT toll-free action line: 866/327-8670.

States Step in To Deal With Medicare Mess
By now you’ve read many stories about the confusion and hardship that the administration’s Medicare drug plan has created. At least 26 states have intervened to cover drug costs for thousands of poor seniors and disabled patients who were denied their drugs under Part D plans. At first, Medicare officials claimed the law did not allow direct reimbursement and advised states to seek payments from individual Part D plans. But growing political pressure prompted Medicare chief Dr. Mark McClellan to announce recently that his agency would use its influence to ensure that private insurers repaid states. In cases where states paid more than health plans would pay, Medicare would make up the difference. McClellan could not estimate how much that would cost but did say the reimbursements would end by Feb. 15, insisting problems should be resolved by then. Democrats were less confident and warned that asking states to process claims with private health plans added an unnecessary administrative burden, particularly when the errors occurred on the federal level. "The reality is the drug benefit is so poorly conceived and designed, this crisis will certainly not be the last," said Ruben Burks, secretary-treasurer of the Alliance for Retired Americans. U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said she will continue to push for a bill which would extend from May 15 to Dec. 31 the deadline for beneficiaries to enroll in the drug benefit without penalty. The AFT is supporting a similar bill (HR 3861/S 1841) to extend the deadline and guarantee seniors who sign up for Part D the right to return to employer drug plans.

Whose State of the Union?
On Jan. 31, President George W. Bush will lay out his 2006 agenda in his State of the Union speech. Despite the friendly sounding titles, these programs continue to produce disastrous results for working families. While you’re listening to President Bush, the AFL-CIO encourages you to think about what some of his previous policies have really meant to working people:

• When Bush talks about health insurance, remember the disastrous Medicare drug prescription plan his team in Congress rammed through. It has stranded tens of thousands of seniors without needed medications and forced some 20 states to declare public health emergencies. The president’s proposal for health savings accounts, for all its vaunted "portability," would eventually shift responsibility for health coverage from employers to individual employees. 
• When the president talks about healthcare costs, remember that he and his allies in Congress continue to refuse to allow Medicare to negotiate with drug companies, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. A recent report by the Center for Economic Policy and Research finds that if Medicare improved the efficiency of the drug benefit and paid the same prices for medicines as countries such as Australia, which regulates prices, the current projected budget for the drug program could finance the benefit fully without contributions from beneficiaries and produce a surplus of $40 billion between 2006 and 2013. 
• When Bush talks about taxes, remember the huge tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans he and congressional leaders already have passed, and the ever-growing debt they are leaving to our children and grandchildren. 
• When the president talks about opportunity, remember how the income gap is growing as wages fall and the cost of living rises for working families. Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans control 57.5 percent of our nation’s corporate wealth. In 1992, that figure was 38 percent. 
• When Bush talks about education, remember that he and leaders in Congress have pushed higher education out of reach for many by cutting student loans by over $12 billion and promoting creation of a New Orleans school district that reneged on its union contract and now almost totally consists of nonunion charter schools.

Sweeney Outlines Ambitious Pro-Worker Agenda
In a major address Jan. 18 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., AFL-CIO president John Sweeney described how America’s workers have struggled over the past 25 years as "a perfect storm of outsourcing, offshoring, tax evasion, layoffs, work speedups, wage cuts, healthcare cuts, pension cuts, shifting risks, bashing unions and shortchanging communities" has swept across the landscape. Corporations, he added, compete in the global marketplace through privatization, deregulation and de-unionization—all of which degrade work and workers—rather than through innovation and ingenuity. The resulting damage has "swamped the boats of middle-class workers and destroyed the frail crafts of ethnic and immigrant workers," he said. Sweeney called on Congress to adopt an agenda that includes fair trade agreements, the repeal of tax incentives that encourage corporations to send jobs overseas, prohibition of the sale of goods made in sweatshop conditions, universal health coverage and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would guarantee workers the freedom "to come together in unions and bargain for a better life." For a transcript of the speech, visit http://www.aflcio.org/goodjobs.

Unions Promote Bills Requiring Large Employers To Spend More on Employee Health Insurance
Unions hope to capitalize on anti-Wal-Mart sentiment and to build momentum in a number of states for legislation that would require large employers to increase spending on employee health insurance, after Maryland enacted such a bill earlier this month. The Maryland General Assembly on Jan. 12 overrode a veto of the legislation by Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich. The new law will require employers with more than 10,000 workers in the state to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on employee health insurance or pay into a fund for the uninsured. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the labor movement has begun a long-term grass-roots campaign in 31 states to get similar "fair share healthcare" bills introduced and adopted by state legislatures. He vowed to educate workers about the need to hold employers accountable for their health insurance costs. Workers and retirees also will mobilize to make phone calls, send letters and participate in public events to hold their state lawmakers accountable. States where bills are to be introduced, according to the AFL-CIO, include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts (part of a larger healthcare bill), Michigan, Minnesota (also pushing a constitutional amendment guaranteeing healthcare), Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. In addition to the AFL-CIO, the campaign includes WakeUpWalmart, a group sponsored by the United Food and Commercial Workers, and Americans for Health Care, a project of the Service Employees International Union.

AFT Retirees Weigh in To Include More Drugs
in Part D
The AFT program on retirement and retirees joined 17 other members of the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations (LCAO) in support of legislation to allow benzodiazepines to be covered by the Medicare drug benefit program. Benzodiazepines are commonly used to manage acute anxiety, panic attacks, seizure disorders, and muscle spasms in those with cerebral palsy or other disorders. Lack of coverage for these drugs under Part D is especially difficult for about 1.2 million low-income seniors with both Medicaid and Medicare coverage who need the drugs.

AFT Vice President Paul Cole Retires
Paul F. Cole, an AFT vice president for more than 30 years and a longtime officer of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and the New York AFL-CIO, has announced his retirement effective Feb. 1. Cole, a former social studies teacher in Youngstown, N.Y., will continue as executive director of the American Labor Studies Center based in Troy, N.Y. Elected to the AFT council in 1974, Cole since 1981 has served as chair of the AFT's standing committee on career and technical education. He also was active on the union's COPE and democracy committees. Cole is a board member of the Alliance for Retired Americans. During his union career in New York, Cole was president and chief negotiator of the Lewiston-Porter United Teachers in Niagara County. In 1971, he made the motion at the state's NEA-affiliated New York State Teachers Association convention that led to its merger with the AFT-affiliated United Teachers of New York, which resulted in the creation of NYSUT. Cole served on NYSUT's board of directors until 1997 and is now a member emeritus. In 1984, he was elected secretary-treasurer of the New York state AFL-CIO, a position he held until retiring on Jan. 1. Throughout his career, he championed the importance of integrating the role and history of the labor movement into classroom instruction. He created an American labor studies high school curriculum that has served as a model throughout the country. During the Clinton administration, Cole was vice chair of the National Skill Standards Board and a member of the National School-to-Work Advisory Council. He also served on the board of trustees of Cornell University for many years and as chair of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations advisory council. Cole is founder and executive director of the American Labor Studies Center, a nonprofit organization that collects, evaluates and disseminates labor history and labor studies curriculum to K-12 teachers nationwide.

Doctors Call for Ban on Drug Company Gifts
Gifts, free samples and other promotional incentives given to doctors by drug companies and medical device manufacturers undermine medical care and should be prohibited, a group of doctors wrote in the Jan. 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. According to the authors—who include doctors from Harvard University, Columbia University and the Association of American Medical Colleges—the drug industry spends about 90 percent of its $21 billion annual marketing budget on promotions for doctors. Gifts range from consulting arrangements for hundreds of thousands of dollars to free drug samples and small gifts of pens, mugs and working lunches. Drug companies are forbidden by law to pay doctors to prescribe drugs or devices, but gifts and consulting arrangements are almost entirely unregulated. Voluntary professional guidelines suggest that doctors not accept gifts of greater than "modest" value. But such guidelines are ineffective, the authors write. The authors recommend prohibiting gifts (including lunches, free samples and giveaways), forbidding doctors with ties to drug companies from recommending drugs, restricting corporate financial ties with medical schools and requiring medical school faculty with industry consulting agreements or unconditional grants to post them on a public Web site. Drug companies spend $13,000 per doctor each year. You may want to talk with your doctor about office policies on drug company representatives.

Employer Match Provides Little Incentive To Contribute to 401(k)-Type Pension Plans
Researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) have found that matching contributions from employers don’t do much to encourage participation in 401(k)-type pension plans by low- and mid-salary employees. In an analysis of some 500 pension plans covering nearly 740,000 workers, the authors of a new paper published by NBER estimate that about 60 percent of non-highly-compensated workers would participate in a tax-deferred retirement savings plan whether or not the employer contributed. Only about 10 percent would join the plan as a result of incentives such as matching money, and the remaining 30 percent would not participate at all.

AFT PLUS Helps You Save With Pet Insurance
AFT PLUS pet insurance and Pet Assure veterinary care can help you save a bundle. Pet insurance includes policies for older pets, accident-only coverage and more. For details, visit http://www.unionpluspets.com or call 866/473-7387. Pet Assure Veterinary Care Savings allows you to save 25 percent on your bill at participating veterinarians. AFT members receive a 40 percent discount on the monthly fee. The plan covers all pets, including exotics and horses. Coverage includes preventive care, shots, surgery, x-rays, lab work, medications and more. Your savings come directly off your veterinary bill. For more information or to enroll, call 888/789-7387 or visit www.unionplus.org/pets/pets.com.

Quote of Note: Drug Company Promotions
"The [drug] industry is spending $13 billion per year on direct-to-physician promotion. That wouldn't be happening if it weren't resulting in changing patterns of [drug] utilization."

Sharon Levine, Associate Executive Director
Northern California Group Practice, Kaiser Permanente

Web Site of the Week: http://www.dtv.gov
Thinking about buying a digital TV? A complete menu of the pros, cons and beyond is available at this funky Web site created by the Federal Communications Commission.