August 2008 Newsletter - American Foreign Service Association

FEHB
There is still no word on whether the Office of Personnel
Management will ask health plans to create a
separate plan for Medicare-eligible retirees. As explained
in our April issue, AFSA and other retiree
organizations are wary of the OPM proposal because
of the possibility it could open the door to establishing
a separate FEHB plan ― with lesser benefits
and higher premiums costs ― based on age.
In another respect, we members of FEHBP can count
ourselves lucky, since our coverage provides more
than simple good health coverage. In a recent poll
conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a health
policy research group, 7 percent of adults said
someone in their household had married in the past
year to gain access to health insurance. The foundation
said that this is an intriguing indicator that
some Americans “are making major life decisions on
the basis of health care concerns.”
Something to think about: According to the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities, Social Security's projected
shortfall over the next 75 years is slightly less than the
estimated cost over that period of extending the 2001
and 2003 tax cuts just for the top 1 percent of households.
Foreign Service officer seeks information from
those knowledgeable about FSO Felix Russell Engdahl,
who was posted to Port-au-Prince, Calcutta,
and Shanghai and who died in Hong Kong in 1942.
Contact: Jason Vorderstrasse, 8000 Hong Kong
Place, Dulles, VA 20189-8000, vorderstrassejg@state.gov.