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TEXAS AFT LEGISLATIVE HOTLINE--FRIDAY, JULY 10,
2009 * For Enrollees in TRS Long-Term Care Plan, Decision
Due by July 15 Long-Term Care Enrollees Have Decision to Make by July 15: By next Wednesday, July 15, the 9,000-plus school employees, retirees, and their family members who participate in the group long-term care insurance program administered by the Texas Teacher Retirement System will have to make a choice about this program. If you are enrolled in this program and have not already done so, you must choose by July 15 whether to continue with Aetna or change to Genworth. (The toll-free number for Genworth is: 866-659-1970.) If you do not take any action, then by default you will continue to be enrolled with Aetna. Current TRS long-term care underwriter Aetna is ending its contract with TRS. All current enrollees are supposed to have been sent by mail an individualized statement of their options. TRS began offering a voluntary group long-term care insurance benefit in 2000. Costs for the program are borne entirely by enrollees; there is no state subsidy. Roughly 9,500 active and retired Texas public school employees and eligible family members are enrolled in the program. Texas AFT Leader Comments on State Board of Education: Linda Bridges, president of Texas AFT, has called on Texas voters to start paying more attention to "an ultraconservative bloc on the State Board of Education" that is trying to politicize public education. (Today Gov. Rick Perry named a member of this bloc, Gail Lowe of Lampasas, as the new SBOE chair.) This group, which has been trying to push creationism into the state's science classes, now has targeted the social-studies curriculum, with predictable results. They have named kindred spirits to a panel reviewing the state's social-studies guidelines, and two of these appointees have proposed to erase from the state's curriculum any favorable mention of labor and civil-rights leader Cesar Chavez as well as the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, first African American to serve on the nation's highest court. "Who is next on the chopping block," Bridges asked, "Martin Luther King Jr.?" In remarks quoted in a San Antonio newspaper, Bridges added: "The people who get elected at the State Board are public servants, and they have to represent all of the public, and if they don't then the public needs to look at who gets elected." Quest for Health-Care Reform--Get Ready to Call
Congress July 14: Next week 2,000 AFT members will be
in Washington, D.C., for the union's QuEST professional-issues
conference, and they will seize the chance to lobby Congress for
health-care reform. You can add your voice to theirs without
leaving home, by calling that day on the toll-free line provided
by AFT. Get ready to flood the U.S. Capitol switchboard with a
unified message: Pass real health-care reform now! We will
follow up next week with details on how to participate in this
"virtual lobby day" as Congress continues to work on a
health-care bill. |
