Maine Retirees Score a Win on Health Premiums

Photo Courtesy of David Pillsbury

Amidst the frenzied coast-to-coast budget slashing this year, something remarkable took place in the Pine Tree state. Maine lawmakers agreed to increase the state's share of retiree health premiums. The result? Pension checks delivered to Maine's retired teachers beginning in July increased about $20-25 a month.

What happened? The Maine Education Association (MEA) and MEA-Retired launched a full-court press to improve health insurance benefits for Maine retirees. "Seventy percent of our retired teachers receive a pension of less than $20,000 a year," says David Pillsbury, a retired history teacher from Portland and chair of the MEA-Retired legislative committee. As a result, retired teachers are barely scraping by, and Active members are delaying their retirement because they can't afford to assume the cost of their health benefits.

The keys to MEA's win:

Organization. Pillsbury spearheads a legislative contact team that includes 135 retired members, located in every Senate and three-fourths of the House districts. The contact team members receive training each November on the Association's positions and strategies for working with legislators. When the legislature is in session, "we contact representatives every week about what our program and positions are," says Pillsbury.

Consistent message. State employees in the Maine State Retirement System (MSRS) have 100-percent state-paid health insurance. Retired teachers in MSRS, even with the increased state subsidy, must pay 60 percent of premium costs. They're letting lawmakers know that the inequities must end. Pillsbury says that when he goes to the state Capitol, "legislators come up to me and say: 'Stop sending those e-mails! We know what you want. We got the message.'"

Research. When lawmakers appeared poised last winter to drop their commitment to help retired teachers with their premiums, the MEA Benefits Trust, which negotiates health insurance rates for Active and Retired employees, crunched the numbers again. It found that the increases in health insurance rates were not going to be as high as originally expected--which freed up money in the state budget. That helped turn the tide, says Charlene Thompson, past president of MEA-Retired. "At that point, legislators who had opposed us said that, since we had done our part in keeping costs down, they could support us."

Electing pro-education candidates. Maine educators worked hard to get pro-education candidates into the legislature and governor's office. That paid off, as MEA and MEA-Retired staff and members lobbying and testifying to legislators "saw a lot more friendly faces," says Catherine Sullivan, MEA-Retired's representative to the MSRS Board of Trustees. "Retired teachers were very active in the MEA's process of screening and endorsing candidates. They also spent a lot of time working on campaigns and making phone calls. It's an old process that still works."

MEA and MEA-Retired will continue pressing the legislature until retired teachers have parity with state employees, says Anne Sheehan, a member of the legislative contact team. She says their recent win will boost their lobbying and member recruitment efforts. "It's important for our members to see that we're successful; when they see these results, they say, 'maybe all the work is worth it.'"

--John O'Neil