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ProtectSeniors.Org Begins Lobbying for Retirees on Capitol Hill
|  In recent months, a group of former telephone company employees banded together to form ProtectSeniors.Org. This new organization is dedicated to push for passage of legislation friendly to retirees. Specifically, ProtectSeniors.Org says their focus is on H.R. 1322, the Emergency Retiree Health Benefits Protection Act, sponsored by Rep. John Tierney (D-Massachusetts). Created in early 2006 ProtectSeniors.Org leaders say they took a second major step forward in their efforts to activate some of estimated 20 million retirees around the country, who have been deeply impacted by the cuts or outright loss of healthcare benefits once promised to them by their former employer. “This is a national crisis of huge proportions,” said ProtectSeniors.Org co-founder and President, James E. Casey. “Corporate America is trying to solve its financial problems by shifting healthcare costs to retirees, who can least afford the additional burden.” ProtectSeniors.Org has already brought on board Washington, D.C. lobbyist Paul A. Miller as its new executive director and chief lobbyist. Miller was an aide to Les Aspin former U.S. Congressman and U.S. Secretary of Defense. He is also best known as President of the American League of Lobbyists, an association representing the lobbying community and is playing an active role in the current debate in Washington on lobbying reform. When contacted about his new role with the national retiree group, Miller commented, “I am very excited about the opportunity this offers me and the members of ProtectSeniors.Org. The leadership of ProtectSeniors.Org should be commended for their efforts to create an organization for the over 20 million former employees who were promised healthcare and then had it pulled out from underneath them,” he said. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the organization plans to aggressively educate members of Congress as to the critical problems facing people who, at the time they need it the most, are watching their coverage shrink and their premiums soar.
H.R. 1322 would put in place protections on retirees’ company-sponsored healthcare insurance similar to those that ERISA has provided for pensions for the past 34 years. The bill would make it illegal for companies to reduce or terminate healthcare plans or to pass additional costs on to employees once they retire. “People worked for companies for 20, 30, 40 or more years with the promise that certain benefits would be there through their working years and into retirement. These benefits were an integral part of the employee’s compensation package – something that they earned, just like their salary, during their careers. “It is unconscionable to renege on those commitments,” said Casey. “We plan to do something about this through ProtectSeniors.Org.” “This legislation is extremely important to millions of American retirees and our job with ProtectSeniors.Org is to energize those who stand to lose or have lost portions of their healthcare benefits. We are rallying these people to understand that together we can make a difference but as individuals we don’t have that same voice. I would encourage everyone out there who has had been promised healthcare benefits by their company only to have them taken away to call us and become a part of the solution – ProtectSeniors.Org,” Miller concluded. To find out more about the organization, you can find the organization on the web at www.ProtectSeniors.Org or write to them at ProtectSeniors.Org, 601 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Suite 900 South Building, Washington, DC 20004 or Telephone 202-434-8193.  -Spring 2006 Issue |
