Saturday, November 10, 2007

Nancy Hamant to Rep. Chris Widener: Help us help ourselves by supporting HB 315

From Nancy Hamant, November 10, 2007
Subject: HB 315
Representative Widener:
Your support for HB 315 is most important. HB 315 permits teachers to take care of future health care and those retired to make it affordable. HB 315 provides the opportunity to keep Ohio educators from becoming a major group in the looming health care crisis that our nation and Ohio faces. Help us help ourselves by supporting passage of HB 315.
Please let me know your action on HB 315. Thank you,
Nancy B. Hamant
Pleasant Plain, OH

Nancy Hamant to Speaker Jon Husted: Your leadership is needed to pass HB 315

From Nancy Hamant, November 10, 2007
Subject: HB 315
Representative Husted:
Your support for HB 315 is most important. HB 315 permits teachers to take care of future health care and those retired to make it affordable. HB 315 provides the opportunity to keep Ohio educators from becoming a major group in the looming health care crisis that our nation and Ohio faces. Help us help ourselves by supporting passage of HB 315.
As Speaker of the Ohio House, you can provide the leadership for passage of this important legislation.
Please let me know your action on HB 315. Thank you,
Nancy B. Hamant
Pleasant Plain, OH

Tuesday, November 06, 2007

Warren County jumps on board with a Resolution of Support for Dennis Leone's motion

A Resolution of Support

Whereas, according to the Ohio Revised Code 3307.15, the State Teachers Retirement System is governed by a Retirement Board consisting of five elected contributing teacher members; two elected retired teacher members; an investment expert appointed by the governor; an investment expert appointed jointly by the speaker of the House and the Senate president; an investment expert designated by the treasurer of state; and the superintendent of public instruction or her designated investment expert,

And

Whereas we believe that the duly elected and appointed members of the Retirement Board should have the sole responsibility for establishing and voting upon all policies governing the actions of the State Teachers Retirement System,

And

Whereas the Executive Director of the State Teachers Retirement System has, in several instances, usurped the power to establish policy and practices,

And

Whereas the Board of the State Teachers Retirement System has failed to take action to delimit the ability of the Executive Director in such matters,

And

Whereas State Teachers Retirement Board member, Dr. Dennis Leone, on October 19, 2007, made a motion to establish such limits by changing language in existing Board policy entitled : “Delegation to the Executive Director“, on page 41 paragraph B of the Board Policy Manual. A motion that was subsequently tabled;

Therefore the membership of the Warren County Retired Teachers' Association at its meeting on Monday, November 5, 2007 voted to send this resolution of support for Dr. Leone‘s motion to the Board of the State Teachers Retirement System along with the request that the Board, at its November 2007 meeting bring Dr. Leone‘s motion to a vote and enact the policy changes therein."

Enacted this 5th day of November, 2007

For the Warren County Retired Teachers' Association:

Ms. Barbara Carvey, President

Mr. Ryan Holderman

Labels: , , ,

John Curry to Rep. Joyce Betty re: HB 315

From John Curry, November 6, 2007
Subject: HB 315
Honorable Ohio House of Representative Minority Leader Joyce Beatty,
I am a retiree in the Ohio STRS. I commend you for serving Ohioans as a State Representative and want to say that the financial future of all Ohio public educators depends upon the concept of increased contributions for healthcare to the stakeholders of this retirement system.
Beginning Jan. 1, 2008, STRS will want retirees with covered spouses (of non-Medicare age) to fork over $850 per month for healthcare premiums (80/20 PPO with Medical Mutual) for the equal healthcare coverage that the same person would pay less than $90 per month (retiree+spouse) had they retired in the OPERS system. Some are heard to say that one can't compare apples and oranges (STRS vs. OPERS) when it comes to health premiums. Sure, there are differences in contribution rates and ages at retirement but.... 30 years of a person's "work life" are 30 years. As it stands now, STRS wants 8 1/2 times the monthly healthcare premiums as does OPERS for a dedicated Ohio educator who spent this 30 years educating Ohio's future rather than 30 years working under an OPERS covered occupation.
I commend you for listening to my plea re. HB 315 and for considering what I am writing. It appears that at least one of your cohorts in the Ohio House wants nothing more than seeing HB 315 die in committee. Below is a report from an STRS retiree (Ryan Holderman) who attended a meeting of the Warren County Retired Teachers Association on 11/05/07. In this report he relates what Representative Michelle Schneider had to say about HB 315....it is enough to make STRS retirees lose all faith in her ability to fairly represent our best interests. With friends like Michelle Schneider we retirees certainly don't have to search far for enemies! Here is the body of that report from STRS retiree Ryan Holderman:
Dear John:
Representative Michelle Schneider came to our WCRTA meeting today. After Shannon Jones reneged our program chairperson called Ms. Schneider and she agreed to come. She is the representative for part of Warren County.
The meeting was very lively. We asked a lot of hard questions and Ms. Schneider handled herself well and said that she was getting our message loud and clear. Having said that, she said that the healthcare legislation is dead. She's majority whip in the House and said that it would not be passed. She is also very supportive of divestment. WCRTA let her know that it was not in the best interests of retirees and that we did not support the practice.
I asked Ms. Schneider what solution she could offer to the health care crisis STRS faces and she, very honestly, said that she did not know.
Nancy Hamant, Marvin Bracy, Molly Ganz and several others joined in asking very direct questions. It was an interesting meeting!
Later,
Ryan
As you can see, Representative Beatty, we retirees need all the help we can get from you and your friends in the Ohio House of Representatives to ensure that HB 315 finally makes it to the floor of the Ohio House for a vote. Many of my fellow retirees are now feeling a severe financial pinch that was caused by the lack of leadership and foresight by a former administration and a former Board at the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio.
HB 315 will restore dignity and financial security to the lives of many of my fellow retirees who are now suffering at the hands of a previously inept STRS leadership. You see, many STRS retirees are currently making the decision daily of whether it will be food or medicine...we can't afford to wait another day. Without affordable healthcare, there is no retirement. Thank you for your help in this matter and please see that HB 315 does make it to the floor of the Ohio House for a vote. Over 110,000 STRS retirees are depending upon you and your fellow House members for our future.
Sincerely,
John Curry
A retired Ohio public educator
A proud member of CORE (Concerned Ohio Retired Educators)

Monday, November 05, 2007

Damon Asbury to retire

From STRS, November 5, 2007

Dr. Damon F. Asbury announced today that he will retire from his position as executive director of the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio (STRS Ohio) when his current contract ends on June 30, 2008.

In announcing his decision, Asbury said, "As I near the completion of almost five years as STRS Ohio's executive director, I am looking forward to retiring and exploring new opportunities. During my more than 40 years of service in the public arena, I most appreciate that my life has been blessed by so many friends, colleagues and acquaintances during that period. The opportunities and challenges afforded to me have been deeply rewarding.

"My most recent opportunity to serve as STRS Ohio's executive director has been a privilege and a professional capstone. The condition of STRS Ohio is sound and this is a very good time for the Retirement Board to initiate a search for a qualified successor.

- STRS Ohio assets are at an all-time high level, approaching $80 billion;

- The pension fund's actuarial condition is much improved - it is 83% prefunded and the amortization period is 26 years;

- Legislation in the form of H.B. 315 has been introduced to create a dedicated revenue stream for retiree health care;

- A highly skilled staff, dedicated to member service and benefits, is on board;

- We are led by a diverse and committed Retirement Board; and

- Member trust and confidence remains at high levels."

Asbury began his career at STRS Ohio in July 2000 when he was designated deputy executive director -- Administration. He officially took over that position in January 2001. In August 2003 the Retirement Board asked him to serve as interim executive director; then chose him to be STRS Ohio's eighth executive director in February 2004. Prior to coming to STRS Ohio, Asbury served as the superintendent of the Worthington City Schools from 1991-2000; he was with the Columbus City Schools from 1967-1991.

Jeffrey Chapman, chair of the State Teachers Retirement Board, noted, "My fellow board colleagues and I are extremely grateful for the outstanding leadership Dr. Asbury has provided to this system and his commitment to serving our members. His door is always open and all constituents are treated with respect. He believes in the mission of this system and has never wavered from it in his work with this board, active and retired teachers, STRS Ohio associates and legislators."

A board committee has been appointed to make a recommendation regarding an executive search firm to assist the Retirement Board in choosing Asbury's replacement. The members of the committee are: Jeffrey Chapman, who is serving as the chair, Craig Brooks, Mary Ann Quilter Cervantes, John Lazares and Mark Meuser. The committee will make a recommendation to the board at its December 2007 meeting.

"We appreciate that our membership and STRS Ohio associates will have an interest in providing input to this national search," Chapman said. "We will be relying on counsel from our chosen search firm as how to facilitate that input so that it has a meaningful and appropriate place in the process. Further, we have no limitations to the search. All qualified candidates will be welcome to apply."

The board plans to have a new executive director named by June 30, 2008.

Labels: , , ,

Ryan Holderman reports on WCRTA meeting

From John Curry, November 5, 2007
Subject: You aren't going to like what you read! House Bill 315
Keep in mind that the 2008 election is just one year down the road. There are over 400,000 STRS stakeholders (active participants and retirees) and almost each one of them has close relatives and friends who are of voting age...shall we say this final number might well total into the millions? Should the politician's prediction (below) come true....we can counter at the ballot box in about 365 days to show those that are up for reelection that we mean business! Housecleaning might be a better term! Remember how instrumental COREmembers were in helping usher Jim Petro and Betty Montgomery out the door just last year? We educated the educators. We CAN do it again! John
P.S. Thank you Ryan, Nancy, Marvin, and Molly for attending and representing all CORE members today at the Warren County meeting. At a time like this....a massive letter writing campaign is in order from every active educator, retiree, and especially administrators. Then again...will the administrators have the political courage to buck the OSBA and do the RIGHT THING? Will current educators finally understand that their future hinges on this issue (House Bill 315)? A "she did not know" is not good enough for all of those who have educated and are educating Ohio's future! I can only hope that no educator "pac" funds be given to any legislator who shows no support for this bill.
From Ryan Holderman, November 5, 2007
Subject: Warren County RTA meeting 11/5/07
Dear John:
Representative Michelle Schneider came to our WCRTA meeting today. After Shannon Jones reneged our program chairperson called Ms. Schneider and she agreed to come. She is the representative for part of Warren County.
The meeting was very lively. We asked a lot of hard questions and Ms. Schneider handled herself well and said that she was getting our message loud and clear. Having said that, she said that the healthcare legislation is dead. She's majority whip in the House and said that it would not be passed. She is also very supportive of divestment. WCRTA let her know that it was not in the best interests of retirees and that we did not support the practice.
I asked Ms. Schneider what solution she could offer to the health care crisis STRS faces and she, very honestly, said that she did not know.
Nancy Hamant, Marvin Bracy, Molly Ganz and several others joined in asking very direct questions. It was an interesting meeting!
Later,
Ryan

President of Knox County RTA Brad Walton to STRS Board: Support for Dennis Leone's motion

From Brad Walton, November 4, 2007
Subject: Dennis Leone's motion

To the STRS Board:

I support Dennis Leone's motion to require board approval as stated in the existing STRS Board Policy for any compensation to employees or any other major decisions. It is the board's responsibility to make these decisions and it is neglecting its duty if this is not done. Also please correct the amended policy to eliminate any contradictions or possibility of misunderstandings.

I appreciate all the time you spend in conducting the board's business on our behalf and I hope you will do your best to do the right thing.

Brad Walton, Pres, Knox County RTA

Labels: , , ,

RH Jones: Retirees carrying the burden

From RH Jones, November 5, 2007

To all:

To the STRS, members, the board and employees:

A supine STRS board enabled the Executive Director to have unnecessary power to skirt the checks and balances of the STRS guidelines, especially concerning the STRS employee compensation. I strongly suggest that the STRS board members endorse Dr. Leone’s corrective initiatives.

For too long retirees have had to shoulder the increasingly heavy burden of supporting the devaluation of the dollar, far right wing-controlled school district boards and a similarly controlled State Board of Education, enabling unions, and a passive STRS board.

Too many board/employee extravagances have been allowed. While the great STRS financial return of the 27.7% is very commendable, my STRS board and employees should not, by their actions, jeopardize the sorely needed HB 315. Without HB 315, even with continued great financial returns, the STRS will not be able to sustain retired educator health care (HC). Consequently, everyone in Ohio loses.

I urge you not to marginalize the importance to all the STRS members of the passage of HB 315. By your passivity, do not ignore your shared responsibility to follow the ORC 3307.15. We may expect some members of school district boards to be ignorant and supine toward retired educators, but not those of you who have the awesome responsibility of serving on the STRS board. You are educated, and should not be fooled by the far-right wing philosophic rhetoric. They would think nothing of having retired educators, as in the Great Depression, once again selling apples on street corners.

Being alert to the proper checks and balances of proper STRS guidelines will keep negative publicity from endangering passage of HB 315. Please be aware of that.

Sincerely,

Robert Hudson Jones, a retired STRS member

Sunday, November 04, 2007

If you take Lipitor, you might want to read this; Ohio lawmakers mentioned

From Nancy Hamant, November 4, 2007
Important reading, particularly since STRS has a new mail-in provider for 2008 --Express Scripts. Please remember to mail information to me if you note discrepancies in your drug costs. I will compile that information so that CORE is aware of any problems. Hope that there aren't any.
Nancy (Hamant)
-----
November 3, 2007
Maker of Lipitor Digs In to Fight Generic Rival
By STEPHANIE SAUL and ALEX BERENSON
NY TIMES
It is shaping up to be the biggest shift yet to a generic drug, potentially saving the nation $2 billion a year or more in prescription costs.
And scientists and doctors say that for most of the 16 million people in America who take drugs to reduce cholesterol, the low-priced alternative will work as well as the name-brand medicine -- Lipitor, which is made by Pfizer and is the nation's most widely prescribed drug.
While Lipitor itself is not available as a generic, a very similar drug made by Merck, Zocor, lost its patent protection last year. The generic version of Zocor, simvastatin, is now much cheaper than Lipitor, leading insurers to press doctors and patients to switch.
But Pfizer is not letting its flagship drug go down without a fight.
The company has mounted a campaign that includes advertisements, lobbying efforts and a paid speaking tour by a former secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Pfizer is also promoting a study -- whose findings many experts are questioning -- that concluded that British patients who switched to simvastatin had more heart attacks and deaths than those who remained on Lipitor.
The Lipitor battle has become a test of the pharmaceutical industry's ability to defend name brands, even as insurers, patients and doctors seek to whittle the nation's $270 billion annual prescription drug bill by using generic alternatives whenever possible.
Lipitor and other cholesterol-lowering drugs, sometimes called statins, are the largest drug class, with spending of $22 billion last year in the United States alone. And they have been researched more thoroughly than any other group of drugs, making head-to-head comparisons easier.
Many doctors have come to see simvastatin as a viable substitute for Lipitor. Studies show that at commonly prescribed doses Lipitor and simvastatin are equally effective at reducing LDL cholesterol, the so-called bad cholesterol.
A big difference is that Lipitor costs $2.50 to $3 a day, while simvastatin sells for 75 cents to $1 a day at most retail pharmacies, and as little as 10 cents a day at discount pharmacies like Costco's.
Each month, doctors with patients on Lipitor are switching tens of thousands of them to simvastatin. And simvastatin is also taking a growing share of the market for new patients who need a cholesterol drug. "Simvastatin is much less expensive to society over all and to patients," said Dr. Thomas H. Lee Jr., a prominent cardiologist. "If you put patients on generics," he said, "the chances that they're taking their medications six months later are higher than on a brand name drug. I think that a few hundred dollars a year does matter."
But Pfizer argues that Lipitor is the most effective statin and that patients who are having good results with it are not well-served by moving to another drug.
"The only reason one would want to switch from one drug to another is for the benefit of the patient's health," said Dr. Michael Berelowitz, senior vice president for worldwide medical affairs for Pfizer.
In September Pfizer began sounding safety alarms by citing an analysis of the medical histories of 2,500 people in Britain who switched to simvastatin from Lipitor, compared with 9,000 who did not make the change. The study concluded that patients who switched were more likely to have a heart attack or stroke than those who remained on Lipitor.
The results were presented on a poster at a European cardiology conference. And Dr. Berelowitz said the study had been accepted by the British Journal of Cardiology and would soon be published.
But independent researchers say that limitations in the study, which was conducted by Pfizer's own researchers, gives it little predictive power about what will happen to patients who take simvastatin instead of Lipitor. And they say the study is far less important than large clinical trials that have shown simvastatin's effectiveness at reducing cholesterol.
"It will run counter to everything that's been published to date if it's true," Dr. Lee said of the Pfizer study. He is president of the network of about 5,000 doctors in Partners HealthCare, the health system formed by Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
Dr. Mark Fendrick, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan and a specialist in health care economics, notes that for patients with extremely high cholesterol, Lipitor may be a better choice. An 80-milligram daily dose of Lipitor, the top dose, can reduce cholesterol by up to 60 percent, compared with about 50 percent for an 80-milligram dose of simvastatin, also the top dose.
But most patients with moderately high cholesterol take 10 or 20 milligrams of Lipitor a day, and can get comparable benefit from 40 or 80 milligrams of simvastatin, Dr. Fendrick said.
Dr. Robert O. Bonow, the chief of cardiology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago and a past president of the American Heart Association, said patients' cholesterol levels should be monitored after the change, to make sure the simvastatin is having the desired effect.
"Switching itself is not a problem," Dr. Bonow said. "It's not that one drug has more risk or less risk."
Lipitor's share of the cholesterol-lowering drug market in this country has ebbed to 30 percent, down from 40 percent 18 months ago, when simvastatin was available only as name-brand Zocor -- at prices that were higher than Lipitor's.
No generic version of Lipitor is in the offing because the Lipitor patent remains valid until at least March 2010. But the advent of generic Zocor has dented sales enough to hurt Pfizer's stock, which is trading near its lowest level in a decade.
In a recent conference call with Wall Street analysts, Pfizer vowed to step up its efforts to protect Lipitor. So far this year, the company has been spending more than 50 percent more on advertising the drug than it did in 2006, when its Lipitor ad spending for the year totaled $142.7 million.
Lately, Pfizer has been running a print and broadcast advertising campaign that features Dr. Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the artificial heart, endorsing Lipitor.
"There's a common misconception that all cholesterol-lowering medications are the same," Dr. Jarvik says in a radio ad. "They're not. There is no generic version of Lipitor."
Despite Pfizer's efforts, analysts and physicians say they see little chance of the company's stemming the generic tide. After two decades of prescribing cholesterol-lowering drugs, doctors are comfortable with both Lipitor and simvastatin, said Dr. Jon LeCroy, who is an industry analyst at Natixis Bleichroeder and a physician.
Insurers and pharmacy benefits companies are spurring patients to switch mainly by raising their out-of-pocket co-payments if they choose Lipitor, while lowering them for generic drugs. On Oct. 1, for example, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois raised the average co-payment for Lipitor by $10 to $20 a month, said Bridget Houlihan, a Blue Cross spokeswoman.
This year, Blue Care Network, a health maintenance organization affiliated with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan, offered to pay $100 to physicians for each patient who filled a prescription for a generic statin.
Pfizer is sponsoring a speaking tour by Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, a former secretary of Health and Human Services, who without citing Lipitor specifically is arguing against insurers' efforts to influence medical decisions.
The company has also been fighting the generics trend in the political arena. In a Sept. 10 letter to state lawmakers in Ohio, a Pfizer lobbyist cited the potential risks of switching to cheaper medicines.
That letter, from Linda Martens, Pfizer's assistant director of government relations in Ohio, noted the company's British study, saying it showed a 30 percent increase in cardiac risks "in patients who were switched from the leading cholesterol-lowering medicine, Lipitor, to another statin drug, simvastatin."
Independent researchers, however, say that the British study is of little value in comparing the two drugs, because it was not based on a clinical trial in which the two drugs were given to two randomly assigned groups of patients.
Instead, the Pfizer researchers simply compared the case histories of patients who had been switched with those who had not, regardless of the reasons they were taken off Lipitor. The results of the study are contradicted by a 9,000-patient clinical trial published in 2005, which found no statistically significant difference between Lipitor and Zocor.
Even a Pfizer doctor involved in the British study, Dr. Berkeley Phillips, said in an interview with the online publication WebMD that it did not prove that Lipitor worked better than simvastatin. "We can't say from this study that switching is bad or that one statin is better than another," Dr. Phillips said. "You would need a randomized clinical trial to say that."

RH Jones to educators of District 91 re: HB 315

From RH Jones, November 4, 2007
Active & retired educators of Ohio District 91
To all:
When you vote for the state representative in District 91 keep in mind Rep. Dan Dodd’s answered my letter asking for support of HB 315. To his credit, although I am not in his district, he gracefully was the only representative on the Financial Institutions, Real Estate& Securities (FIRES) Committee to do so. The letter was noncommittal but surely he, as a conscientious person, will do the right thing and vote the bill out of committee with a recommendation of passage of the house floor. Nevertheless, I thank him profusely for taking the time and expense write me.
Without passage of HB 315, our state will lose young professional educators to states offering health care when they retire from their careers. For without good retirement health care, more expensive older teachers will stay in their positions longer; and, additionally, as they age, school boards will have to pay even more for their insurance.
As you may know this very moderate increase is phased in over a 5-yr. period. Inflation will more than likely take care of any costs. And, I might add, that it has been over 30-yrs. since the employers have had any increase in the STRS contribution - active teachers contributions have been raised at least 3-times since. School boards did tell us educators, now retired, that we had health care in retirement.
And finally, lawfully, there is no other way that the health care can be provided by the STRS without the employer/employee increase provided in HB 315.
With respect,
Robert Hudson Jones, a retired STRS member
Larry KehresMount Union Collge
Division III
web page counter
Vermont Teddy Bear Company