NRLN Action Alert
Tell Congress to Extend
Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC)
Click here to email the NRLN’s sample letter to urge your U.S. Senators and Representative to pass legislation to extend Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC).
Since 2002, the Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC) has helped retirees who lost their health care coverage — in addition to their pensions and other benefits — when their employers either went bankrupt or laid off workers due to foreign trade. This refundable tax credit pays 72.5% of qualified health insurance premiums for eligible individuals between the ages of 55 and 64 (before Medicare eligibility) and their families.
Among those who have benefited from HCTC are members of the NRLN AVAYA Retirees Chapter after AVAYA (a Lucent Technologies spinoff) declared bankruptcy and the salaried pension plan was taken over by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) on November 30, 2017.
Unless members of Congress take action on bills pending in the Senate and House, HCTC will expire at the end of this year. Representative Michael Turner (OH-10) has introduced H.R. 1939 which would extend HCTC for five years. A companion bill has been introduced by Ohio Senators Rob Portman and Sherrod Brown, who worked to extend this tax credit in 2011 and again in 2015, have introduced S. 2414 which would also extend HCTC for five years.
Please take a few minutes to respond to this NRLN Action Alert in an effort to gain legislation to help reduce the cost of health insurance coverage for individuals and their families who have already lost a great deal of what they had earned working for their employers. Now is the time for Congress to focus on governing for the people.
This email and ACTION ALERT serve as an example of why NRLN associations and chapters join and support the NRLN. Whenever income security or healthcare benefit issues affect one association or chapter or other groups of NRLN members we must band together to support them. It is a time when we ask Alyson Parker, Michael Calabrese and the NRLN staff to take the issue to the Hill in Washington D.C. Bob Martina and his grassroots network are asked to lobby in-state and in congressional districts to make contact with congressional offices back home. People like those on our Legislative Action Committee (LAC) and Ed Beltram spend days, evenings and weekends preparing and executing plans, hoping we will always make progress.
Most importantly, it is a time when you must open your emails from the NRLN and take the 5 minutes to read an ACTION ALERT, edit in personal comments, and email the prepared message we ask you to send to your Senators and Representatives.
Currently, we need your help in sending this message needed to help all AVAYA salaried retirees so they can receive a Health Coverage Tax Credit (HCTC) to help them fund the replacement benefits they lost due to AVAYA’s bankruptcy. We are not in this because we can win the game every day, but we are all-in to do what it takes to stand in front of the right people and to be as persuasive as possible to win for NRLN members every day.
We will ask you to stand up for other similar issues, such as hundreds of Chrysler retirees being asked to pay back tens of thousands of dollars over a four month span due to a company pension calculation error made 15 years earlier; or Lucent / Nokia retirees whose life insurance is at risk unless a pension plan statute is changed to protect the benefit. These are current on-the-front-burner issues where YOU can help make a difference.
Yes, we need your financial support to pay for our operational support in Washington D.C. and across the country, but just as importantly I am asking you to extend your view beyond things closest to you and open the NRLN emails, send the Action Alerts and contribute financially when you can. A lot of people need your support -- your actions count more than you may think.
Let’s all get behind the AVAYA retirees and swamp Congress with your letters.
Bill Kadereit, President Bob Martina, Vice President – Grassroots
National Retiree Legislative Network National Retiree Legislative Network
Here are the easy steps to follow on this Action Alert:
1. Click here if you have a problem with the link above. Click on the “Take Action” button below the HCTC Action Alert; next enter your street address and zip code, and click “GO”. It will present the sample letters for you to email to your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representative. If you have a problem with this link, go to
http://www.nrln.org and click on the red flashing icon “Respond to an Action Alert” near the top of the NRLN website home page. When the Action Alert appears, click on the “Take Action” link. Enter your street address and zip and click “GO” and follow the steps to email the NRLN’s sample letters.
2. When you have accessed the sample letters, to the left of the letters are windows to type in your contact information required by members of Congress so they know they are receiving an email from a constituent. If you have sent previous NRLN emails to your members of Congress and left the check marks in the boxes for “Remember Me” and “I would like to receive email in the future” your contact information may be automatically displayed.
3. Personalize the letters by editing in your own comments.
4. Click on the "Preview" button and the letters addressed to your two Senators and Representative will appear. Their names will be automatically added in the letter’s greeting. Check to make sure the letters appear correct and then click "Send".
Important - Please read before forwarding: If you are going to forward this email to others, please delete the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of this email before forwarding this message. If another person would happen to click on the “Unsubscribe” link it will “Unsubscribe” your email address from receiving future NRLN / Chapter emails.
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