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Monday, October 21, 2013

10-21-13 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.

Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.:



Illinois retirees are just pawns in the political games of Cullerton and Madigan.
My friend and blogger John Dillon gets it right. As usual. In Illinois, nothing but uncertainty, anxiety and distrust.  For hundreds of thousands of people working and retired.   You say it’s not a crisis, Senator, and I quite honestly would agree.  It is a debt and revenue problem, one caused by the diversion of required contributions by the General Assembly for other perks and programs.  But t

Medicare Advantage in Illinois. Don’t try selling the Brooklyn Bridge to a retiree.
Since the letter from CMS regarding the Medicare Advantage details came out I have received lots of comments and emails. We are a suspicious bunch. Why on earth would that be? Experience! The wording from IRTA Executive Director Jim Bachman that was passed along today was that any doctor who takes Medicare must take Medicare Advantage. Right away I received messages from retirees who had called th


The in box. Skokie Review (Sun-Times) on S.O.R.E. action at Biss’ office.
The Skokie Review: SKOKIE — The retired teachers say they had a deal about their pensions and now state legislators like Sen. Daniel Biss, D-9, are trying to break it. “It’s like Obamacare and what the Tea Partiers tried to do,” said retired Park Ridge teacher Fred Klonsky, who is leading a new group called S.O.R.E. — Skokie Organization of Retired Teachers — to try to protect their pensions. “It
“We will fight for our pensions if we have to see our shoes.”
Outgoing Illinois Retired Teachers Association President Gary Elmen. IRTA President Gary Elmen addressed over 300 delegates to the 35,000 member organization’s state meeting today in Springfield. We are meeting on the eve of the Fall veto session of the Illinois General Assembly. “We will fight if we have to sell our shoes,” Elmen told the crowd who gave him a standing ovation at the end of his s

CMS letter on Illinois retiree Medicare supplemental.
Illinois state retirees have been holding their breath and many were fearing the worst these past weeks. Today Central Management Services released some of the information that retirees who are Medicare eligible and using the state health care system have been waiting for. For most the news will be good for a change. Although every individual has different needs, the news of the plan produced an a


Cullerton comes clean. “It’s not a pension issue. It’s a revenue issue.”
As I throw a few things into a bag and head down to Springfield for the state meeting of the Illinois Retired Teachers Association and the Fall veto session of the General Assembly, I’m checking out the Chicago Trib. Senate President John Cullerton admits that this is no pension problem. It’s a revenue problem. And where have we heard this before? It’s what we have been saying for years! Illinois

10-20-13 Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.
Fred Klonsky | Daily posts from a retired public school teacher who is just looking at the data.: The in box. “So much for public input.”Fred, It seems at the stakkeholders meeting on Thursday, Oct. 17 (at least for representatives of retirees in the CIP program, though I’m sure there was a similar meeting for “stakeholders” for TRIP), that SUAA bought into the everything is going to be fine, now