{"id":16252,"date":"2018-09-05T15:27:22","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T20:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trta.org\/?p=16252"},"modified":"2018-09-05T15:27:22","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T20:27:22","slug":"house-appropriations-committee-meets-discusses-future-of-trs-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trta.org\/es\/house-appropriations-committee-meets-discusses-future-of-trs-care\/","title":{"rendered":"House Appropriations Committee Meets, Discusses Future of TRS-Care"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Texas House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Article III met today to discuss funding for TRS-Care and the implementation of last session\u2019s changes to the retiree health care program. The committee invited testimony from both the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), as well as stakeholder groups, including the Texas Retired Teachers Association (TRTA).<\/p>\n

The committee is chaired by Rep. Trent Ashby (R – Lufkin). Ashby has worked diligently with TRS and TRTA to provide additional state funding for TRS-Care in previous sessions. Last session, Ashby helped champion HB 3976, which provided $484 million to help fill the $1 billion TRS-Care budget shortfall. Ashby also helped to pass a special session bill that provided $212 toward TRS-Care.<\/p>\n

Next session, TRS-Care is projected to have a $410 million shortfall. While the shortfall is significantly smaller than last year\u2019s gap, TRS-Care still faces significant hurdles. The reason TRS-Care continues to face shortfalls each year is due to the program\u2019s funding formula. TRS-Care is funded on the basis of active educator payroll. However, active educator payroll isn\u2019t keeping up with the rising costs of the health care industry. These increasing costs have resulted in numerous budget shortfalls over the past several legislative sessions.<\/p>\n

Retirees felt a huge hit to the benefits provided by TRS-Care when the state didn\u2019t fully fund last year\u2019s shortfall.<\/p>\n

TRS Executive Director, Brian Guthrie, discussed how the efforts to fill in the TRS-Care shortfalls are like \u201cfighting a losing battle.\u201d He pointed out that while TRS was able to save close to $300 million for TRS-Care through provider-driven contract negotiations, the TRS Board of Trustees is still considering whether to raise premiums for non-Medicare participants by $50 per month and will discuss the matter on September 20 and 21 during their quarterly meeting. The change was originally laid out in the plan by the Legislature in 2017 to take a stair-step approach to raising retiree premiums.<\/p>\n

However, since that time, TRS has received letters<\/a> from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Sen. Joan Huffman (R \u2013 Houston) not to raise the premiums.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur board is very sensitive to perceived legislative intent,\u201d Guthrie said.<\/p>\n

Rep. Donna Howard (D \u2013 Austin) feels that the current pay-as-you-go system that the Legislature has used to fund TRS-Care is \u201cdetrimental to retirees.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou deal with the cards that you\u2019re dealt,\u201d said Howard to Guthrie. \u201cWe need to find some sustainable revenue streams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guthrie detailed a long-term plan that the Legislature had as an option to pre-fund TRS-Care. This plan would involve the Legislature putting in enough money over a 10-year span to not only fund the shortfall, but also to add additional money that would be put into a \u201ccorpus.\u201d Eventually, the corpus would have enough money in it to become its own investment entity, similar to the pension fund. However, to reach enough money to have the corpus cover the costs of TRS-Care would require $12 billion.<\/p>\n

The changes to TRS-Care last year resulted in more than 36,000 participants leaving the program.<\/p>\n

TRTA Executive Director, Tim Lee, also addressed the committee today. Lee detailed the many issues that retirees are suffering from as a result of the changes to TRS-Care, and he said that many people will continue to question whether they want to stay in the health care program. Open enrollment for health care plans in 2019 will begin October 15, 2018, and Lee expects many retirees to be \u201cbombarded\u201d with proposals from insurance agents to leave TRS-Care. Retirees who do choose to leave TRS-Care aren\u2019t allowed back in if they are over the age of 65. Only retirees turning 65 have an opportunity to rejoin when they become age-eligible for the TRS-Care Medicare Advantage plan.<\/p>\n

TRTA has advocated for a \u201cgolden ticket\u201d program that would offer retirees a one-time chance to rejoin TRS-Care regardless of their age.<\/p>\n

\u201cMedical costs aren\u2019t going down,\u201d Lee said. \u201cWe need an ongoing discussion about how to better manage this health care program.\u201d<\/p>\n

TRS-Care premiums were held steady for years because retirees weren\u2019t receiving COLAs, which was the Legislature\u2019s intent. \u201cGoing forward,\u201d said Lee, \u201cit\u2019s important to recognize the need for more revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee said that the current funding rate for TRS-Care is too low, and that so long as this amount remains the same, TRS-Care will continue to have shortfalls.<\/p>\n

TRTA members believe affordable, accessible health care for TRS retirees was once considered a retirement security benefit but is now seen by many as a broken promise. TRS retirees paid into TRS-Care throughout their careers, but the expectation of security in retirement is now threatened due to a fixed income that doesn\u2019t keep up with the cost of living or even the cost of health care.<\/p>\n

TRTA is ready and willing to work with all legislators to restore this promise and give retirees the security they need and deserve. TRTA acknowledges and appreciates the work of chairman Ashby and the members of the Appropriations Committee. Their work will be vital to determining the future of TRS-Care.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Texas House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Article III met today to discuss funding for TRS-Care and the implementation of last session\u2019s changes to the retiree health care program. The committee invited testimony from both the Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS), as well as stakeholder groups, including the Texas Retired Teachers Association (TRTA). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trs","category-trs-care"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHouse Appropriations Committee Meets, Discusses Future of TRS-Care - Texas Retired Teachers Association<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trta.org\/es\/house-appropriations-committee-meets-discusses-future-of-trs-care\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"es_ES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"House Appropriations Committee Meets, Discusses Future of TRS-Care - Texas Retired Teachers Association\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Texas House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Article III met today to discuss funding for TRS-Care and the implementation of last session\u2019s changes to the retiree health care program. 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