Federal Daily - October 16, 2009

Labor Unions Vent Over Long-Term Care Premium Hike

Federal labor leaders conveyed to lawmakers their members’ frustration over a hike in premiums next year for participants in the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP), despite assurances to some beneficiaries that premiums would never increase. At an Oct. 14 joint hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Workforce Subcommittee and the Senate Aging Committee, Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), said enrollees in the FLTCIP Automatic Compound Inflation (ACI) protection option felt they had been led astray. Although ACI participants paid more up front, they were promised no premium hikes, Kelley said. However, earlier this year, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced premium increases of up to 25 percent for ACI participants, Kelley said. “Many of the affected enrollees understood that if they chose the automatic compound inflation option, their premiums would never increase,” Kelley said. “They are angry because they feel they were misled when they joined the program.” National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association President Margaret L. Baptiste said the increase could have been mitigated if OPM had heeded earlier warning signs, such as lower-than-expected lapsed rates and smaller returns on investments. “Many of them (enrollees) have invested tens of thousands of dollars in their policies and are confronted with choices that go from bad to worse,” Baptiste testified. To see more, go to: www.narfe.org/departments/publicrelations/articles.cfm?ID=1918 or www.nteu.org/PressKits/PressRelease/PressRelease.aspx?ID=1485.

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Employee Feedback Would Aid Diversity at DHS, GAO Says

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is missing opportunities to promote agency diversity because it is not doing a good enough job at listening to employee feedback, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) told lawmakers Oct. 14. In testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee, Yvonne D. Jones, GAO director of strategic issues, said the department could do a better job at identifying this and other potential obstacles to employment diversity at the agency. For example, other agencies are tasked with consulting a variety of sources—such as exit interviews, the opinions of employee groups and employee surveys—for insights about operations from a frontline perspective. But DHS does not consider such input, Jones said. “DHS does not analyze these data to determine whether employees perceive certain personnel policies or practices as possible barriers,” Jones said. “By not considering employee input on DHS personnel policies and practices, DHS is missing opportunities to identify obstacles to promoting diversity.” The hearing was a follow-up to an earlier hearing that examined reports that only 10 percent of DHS Senior Executive Service staff were racial minorities—although racial minorities constituted 20 percent of the agency’s workforce. “Creating a diverse workforce is not about simply creating ‘appropriate’ numerical ratios,” said Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss. “The many and varied homeland security challenges faced by this department could be better addressed in an environment that values diversity.” To see more, go to: www.gao.gov/new.items/d10160t.pdf (report) or http://homeland.house.gov/hearings/index.asp?ID=216 (committee hearing).

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Senate Approves Bill to Extend Funding for VA Health Services

The Senate on Oct. 13 approved and sent to President Obama a bill that would ensure adequate funding for Department of Veterans Affairs programs that deliver health care services to veterans. The bill, the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act (H.R.1016), would fund the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) in two-year cycles through advance appropriations. Under current law, VHA appropriations are provided each year. The change would give the agency the ability to plan its budget one year ahead of the regular federal funding process. Currently, VHA’s budget is subject to delay, which hinders its ability to plan its budgets and provide high quality care to veterans, said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., ranking member on the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. “In a time of war and an aging veteran population, we have an obligation to ensure that veterans can get the health care they need when they need it,” Burr said. Starting in Fiscal Year 2011, the bill would authorize VHA appropriations for that fiscal year as well as advance appropriations for the following fiscal year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that implementing the bill would cost almost $187 billion over the 2010-2014 period. To see more, go to: http://veterans.senate.gov/rankingmember/ranking-press-releases.cfm?action=release.display&release_id=0c6cd7b0-783f-420f-be26-cdfb1ef7fb2f or  www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/103xx/doc10312/hr1016.pdf (analysis).

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