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Delphi health subsidy rises
TweetBy Karl Henkel
WARREN
President Barack Obama will sign into law today a bill that will have an impact on local Delphi retirees.
The Health Care Tax Credit subsidy available to Delphi workers through their Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association will increase from 65 percent to 72.5 percent as part of HR 2832, which also deals with free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama and Trade Adjustment Assistance.
The subsidy covers the percentage of health-care insurance costs.
In 2009, the Obama administration, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, temporarily raised the subsidy to 80 percent.
That hike expired at the end of 2010 but was extended six weeks before it expired for good in February.
The percentage change will be retroactive to Feb. 12.
It also will reinstate the qualifying-family-member provision, which allows qualifying family members such as spouses and children to receive the same tax subsidy.
The subsidy is for those 55 and older but not yet 65, when they would qualify for Medicare.
If a Delphi retiree turned 65 but had a younger spouse, his or her spouse no longer would qualify for the tax subsidy.
“It’s tough when you’re operating on such a tight budget and you had no opportunity to plan for this,” said Bruce Gump, a Warren native, Delphi retiree and vice chairman of the board of directors of the Delphi Salaried Retirees Association.
Gump said there are about 1,500 salaried and 11,500 hourly Delphi retirees still living in the Mahoning Valley area.
The bill also will establish an auto VEBA for other auto-supplier retirees from companies such as Collins & Aikman, and Hayes Lemmerz International.
Comments
It's even tougher when it reverts back to 65% at the beginning of 2014, and totally ends at the end of 2014...thanks to the continued pension discrimination by Obama & GM. BOYCOTT GM products until this is made right!
Boy we see now you have been subsidized by the fed ,government and the state government .
You have been getting your full pension from the PGBC . and now we find out the you get your health care subsidized BY 80%
HOW MUCH IS TO MUCH FOR YOU
You seem to be getting it all
and you still are crying with you mouth full and two loafs in you hands
PLUS you had not worked for GM for over 7 years . WOW
Just to be clear - the United States Treasury orchestrated a deal between GM and the UAW to provide for a very well funded VEBA, but did nothing for other retirees, and allowed the salaried retirees to lose everything. Because the pensions of everybody except the UAW were turned over to the PBGC, the already existing Health Coverage Tax Credit was available to them. Only a small percentage of affected workers took advantage of the VEBA set up for them by the Delphi Salaried Retirees, but they were just as deserving as anybody else who qualified for the program. Only workers in the UAW, the IUE-CWA and the USW were deemed important enough by this administration to receive their full pensions. The Delphi Salaried Retirees are not receiving their pensions, and in fact have seen them reduced by 30% to 70%. Their pensions are too small to pay for health care insurance. So courtesy of the Obama Administration, they took your taxes and simply gave them to the UAW workers and a few others, but left some out altogether. That is the issue - how the US Government treats citizens. The first amendment protects the right of citizens to join or not join any group they want and the government is not allowed to treat them any differently, but this administration chose to discriminate based on political support and "commercial necessity." When are they going to consider YOU to be commercially unnecessary - maybe when you go to collect your social security?
Also, this bill did not create a new VEBA for auto industry workers. That came out of an entirely different bankruptcy and is not actually available yet.