National Association of Retired

& Veteran Railway Employees, Inc.

NARVRE National Office
509 W Reed St Moberly, MO 65270
Phone: 660/269-8895 Fax: 660/269-8896 Toll Free: 1-800-551-2588

SINCE 1937

Email: [email protected] WEBSITE: www.narvre.info

Published ten times a year Cost Membership in a Unit or Membership-at-Large

NARVRE NEWSLETTER

FROM THE
NATIONAL PRESIDENT

was looking at the closure of several

Units across the country and it gives
me some concern. I do understand the
many reasons why Units are closed. My
predecessors before me worked hard to establish NARVRE Units across the country
over many years and I for one thank those
members for keeping these Units intact. The
below has transpired since the 2014 convention. It troubles me to see the following:
Area 1 Unit 045 Ft Myers, FL
Area 2 Unit 84 Columbus, OH

Unit 178 Zanesville, OH

Unit 161 Parkersburg, WVA

Unit 177 Huntington, WVA

Unit 126 Clarksville, IN
Area 3 Unit 023 Buffalo, NY
Area 4 Unit 106 Oelwein, IA

Unit 127 Brainerd, MN

Unit 105 Green Bay, WI

From the National

Legislative Director

he annual assessment from the Medicare Trustees Report has stated that
the Medicare Trust Fund will remain
solvent until 2030 which is consistent with
last years report. On July 30th Medicare
celebrated its 50th Anniversary of the 1965
law when Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson signed
the Medicare Amendment to the Social
Security Act. At that time, Americans over
65 were considered risky and only onehalf of seniors had health care insurance,
and most of them were being charged three
times as much as younger people. Today,
the program covers 55 million people with
more than 10,000 seniors becoming eligible
every day. The program remains extremely
popular as the most recent survey from the
Kaiser Family Health Foundation (KFF)
reports that 77 percent of Americans believe
Medicare is very important, including a ma-

SEPTEMBER 2015
Area 5
Area 6


Area 7


Area 8

Unit 107 Muskogee, OK

Unit 004 Newton, KS
Unit 008 Chunute, KS
Unit 31 Omaha, NE
Unit 35 Seattle, WA
Unit 036 Coeur D Alene, ID
merged with Unit 81 Spokane, WA
None

Because these Units were closed does

not mean we lost the members. They were
placed in the At Large Unit 801. The good
news is we did open new Units as well
but not in the same numbers. New Units
created are:
Area 1
Area 2
Area 5

Area 6

Unit 022 Florence, SC

Unit 043 Coneaut/Ashtabula, OH
Unit 064 Harlingen, TX
Unit 26 Lafayette, LA
Unit 186 Salina/Abeline, KS
Unit 014 North Platte, NE

jority of Democrats (89%) and Republicans

(69%). Indeed, the study further reports that
70 percent of the public and the vast majority
of beneficiaries all favor keeping Medicare
as it is today rather than converting it to a
program of vouchers, whereby each enrollee
would be issued a fixed dollar amount to
purchase health care insurance from the
private insurance industry. This voucher
proposal has been rejected in previous years
as it would undermine traditional Medicare
and shift more of the programs financial risk
to beneficiaries. There are major differences
between traditional Medicare and the private
industrys fee-for-service plans. It is now
known that while private fee-for-service
plans must pay for the doctor or hospital one
chooses, they (the doctors and hospitals)
may not accept the rates of the private plans.
Traditional Medicares rates are transparent
and identical within the same geographical
area and private fee-for-service plans are not.
Other plans to reform Medicare are already

VOL. 29 NO. 08
Area 8 Unit 061 Oakland, CA
Many of these closed Units were closed
to officers being up in age and no younger
members to replace them to run the Unit.
Other situations were that the railroad
operations moved away reducing the
employees in a given area.
We will continue to reach out as we have
meetings in Alabama, Mississippi, Nevada
and Utah over the next two months. We
are all volunteers and we need your help
to reach out to the new retirees. They are
not going to come to you believe me. You
have to go the railroad yards, attend union
meetings, rail festivals or railroad clubs.
Another big plus is that your spouse also
draws an annuity. That makes them part
of the family. For a few bucks more it
increases our membership two-fold. It is
not all gloom-and-doom.
Tom Dwyer, National President
in the works and the House Republicans have
committed (according to Chrm. Kevin Brady)
to make the voucher or premium support plan
the most ambitious item on the upcoming
legislative agenda.
Well be watching Chairman Kevin
Brady and the House Ways & Means Health
Subcommittee, as they begin to craft the
actual legislative text for a full package of
reforms to fix Medicare. Brady states that
this years Doc-Fix legislation was his first
step to save Medicare. The Doc-Fix bill was
passed overwhelmingly in a bipartisan vote
last March, 2015. That legislation repealed an
outdated formula known as the sustainable
growth rate (SGR) which by law calculated
doctors payments for Medicare. The DocFix bill finally repealed SGR and ended the
annual threat of cutting the pay of Medicare
doctors and other health care providers. This
bill also put an end to the routine practice in
Congress of extending deadlines on this issue
continued on page 3

From the National Vice President

eptember is the final quarter of the year for all Area Directors
to begin to prepare for attending the upcoming Convention in
St. Louis, Missouri on May 15, 16 and 17 at the Hilton Union
Station -room rate is $139.00 plus tax. Although, Unit Election of
Officers for the Units are in the month of November, the National
Office is asking all Units to do their Delegate elections as early as
possible so that the Convention host Unit can do additional mailings
with information about the Convention. President Norbert Shacklette
from our Host Unit #056 will be mailing convention information on
September 1, 2015. As Units will be getting ready to elect their
Delegate and Alternate to represent their Unit at the convention,
Units should keep in mind that only one delegate has a vote at
the convention from one Unit, but in the absence of the Delegate,
the Alternate Delegate will have the right to vote on electing your
Area Director. The Area Directors up for election in 2016 are as
follows: Areas 1, 3, 5, and 7, were last elected at the Convention
in 2012 for a four year term. Area Directors incumbents holding
current positions are: AREA 1 Director James R. Johnson to serve
FL-GA-MS-AL-TN-NC-SC; Area 3 Director Ken Kolberg was
appointed on March 25, 2013 due to a vacancy to serve CT-DE-MEMD-MA-NH-NJ-NY-PA-RI-VT; Area 5 Director G. G. Gonzalez
was appointed the vacancy on June 1, 2015 to serve TX LA OK NM
AR; Area 7 Director Byron Smith to serve WA-OR-ID-MT. All
Directors should take time to evaluate yourselves and be prepared
to make a commitment to continue to work diligently to the primary
goal of promoting, protecting, preserving your Railroad Retirement
Annuity not only for current NARVRE members already receiving a
Railroad Retirement pension, but also to protecting the future Pension
Annuity of future retirees. As stated before, your main function as
Area Director is to monitor Units and be in contact with the officers
to promote and cultivate the membership in their respective units
to increase membership; but, the most important function is to
establish new Units in areas where there are no Units. Many have
said, I never heard of NARVRE before this is true especially
where there are clusters of retirees not yet explored. When you
find where these groups exist, we cannot afford not to go get them
but also, noting that we cannot go on a goose chases because the
expense does not justify it. NARVRE would exhaust our finances if
we did not exercise caution. In these areas when you want to have
an informational meeting, Area Directors are urged to contact our
past NARVRE President Whitey Westphal, Retiree Representative
of the Moody Law Firm ([email protected] or (440)
452-8427 for assistance in planning the important Informational
Meetings at railroad Terminals or elsewhere in an attempt to alert
Railroad Retirees of their rights under the Railroad Retirement Act.
The cost for these informational meetings is minimal to NARVRE
because our sponsor finances the cost of these meeting. We are fortunate to have the Law Firm of Will Moody sponsor these meetings
as he also sponsors our National Conventions. But it easier said
than done, the mission to attaining new members to recover loses
of members is a losing and exhausting job, so we must employ the
most reasonable means to reach new members.
On another front we continue to monitor the Congress and the
Administration to make sure our Railroad retirement benefits
are not weakened. Here, I am referring to Social Security which
is our Tier I of Railroad Retirement as we want to put to death the
notion that Railroad Retirement can be consolidated under Social
Security Administration. Many railroaders do not think that can

happen, but ask the Airline Pilots who lost their pensions during
mergers. The government allowed their pension to be sent to the
Public Benefit Guaranteed Corporation (PBGC) bank which
pays a fraction of the pension earned. This is where all bankrupt
pension benefits end up.
A spectacular Birthday Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of
Medicare took place at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin,
Texas on July 30, 1965-2015 of the signing of Medicare Program
fifty years ago today. President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare
and later added Medicaid into law, granting hundreds of millions
of America access to health care. A 50 year success said David
Wright, CMS Region VI Acting Administrator of providing care
by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to
seniors and others. The event was celebrated with real passionate
and emotional stories from speakers. Among the participants was
the Austin Chapter of the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans,
CMS Region VI Staff, AARP, NARVRE, Enroll America and Center
for Public Policy Priorities and many other support senior groups.
The celebration cheerfully ended with the cutting of the Birthday
Cake and beverages donated by AARP.

1) Austin TARA Chapter President Glenn Scott, Donna Robyn Hembree, Cleaburn Zwernemann, Marie Drummond, TARA Secretary Tony
Padilla; 2) Cleaburn Zwernemann, TX AARP President, TARA Secretary Tony Padilla, and David Wright CMS Region VI Administrator.

3)TARA Secretary Tony Padilla, David Wright CMS Region VI Administrator, Mark Cebulski, Austin TARA Chapter President Glenn Scott,
Donna Robyn Hembree, Cleaburn Zwernemann, Marie Drummond;
4) (Front) TX ARA President Gene Lantz and TX Secretary ARA
Tony Padilla-(Back) TX ST ARA Elaine Jones, VP TX ARA Lewis
Fulbright, Glenn Scott President Austin TX ARA and NARVRE National President Tom Dwyer .

On July 30, 2015 seniors from all over the nation celebrated
and praise the work of President LBJ for signing Medicare into
law in 1965 and thereby celebrated the 50th Birthday Medicare.
NARVRE worked with the Alliance for Retired Americans on that
celebration on July 30, 2015 at the LBJ Presidential Library with
many other groups. The same was done in Washington with many
groups joined by Congressional Representatives present. Each year
the Trustees of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds report on
the current and projected financial status of the two programs. The
opponents of Social Security and Medicare were undermined
surprised when the report showed both programs were financially
healthier than they thought, but the opponents will keep on inventing
crisis instead of implementing solvency improvements. Workers who
make $117,000 or less per year pay a higher Social Security payroll
continued on page 3

(National Legislative
Director from page 1)
17 times since 2003, costing the taxpayers
nearly $200 billion dollars. So thats a good
thing, but reputable organizations, such as
the Center for Medicare Advocacy and the
Medicare Rights Center both argued that
the bill was not sufficiently balanced as
it asks to much from Medicare enrollees,
and far to little from the pharmaceutical
or insurance industries (without providing
enough for beneficiaries in return). While
Chairman Brady relies on this measure to
affirm the beginning of his plan to reform
and save Medicare, he should revisit the
underlying arguments that the bill allows
for a long-term burden to be put upon
Medicares beneficiaries, especially seniors
on low-incomes and those with disabilities.
Certainly, NARVRE and other organizations
that advocate for retirees, seniors and
Medicare recipients will insist that there are
many avenues of change available which will
protect and strengthen the entire program.
The practice of past Budget Reports to
reform Medicare by extending giant tax
cuts to the wealthiest people in the nation
while unfairly placing the burden of sacrifice
on the budgets of seniors is unacceptable.
We fought those Ryan Budgets in past years
and we have every intention to fight them
again, when the need arises. Congress has
the obligation to insist on fairness and shared
sacrifice in dealing with the many problems
that confront Medicares future. They simply
need to stay focused on the health care of
seniors and disabled Americans...Medicare.
Also, the aforementioned Medicare Board
of Trustees Report also warned of two factors
that will probably affect some Medicare Part
B premiums next January. First, Medicare
Part B costs increased more than expected last
year, and also, Social Security is not expected
to have a cost-of-living (cola) increase next
year. That will most likely translate into
higher Medicare Part B monthly premiums
for certain beneficiaries. By law, the cost
of higher Medicare Part B premiums cannot
be passed on to most Medicare beneficiaries
if they dont receive a Social Security raise.
While these Social Security determinations
are not usually released until the fall, the
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary
Sylvia M. Burwell has stated that while her
final decisions will be determined in October,
seventy percent of enrollees in Part B will
have no change in premiums.
Gary M. Faley,
Legislative Director

(Natl Vice President from page 2)

tax rate than the 5.6 percent who make more.
We talked about Scrap the Cap of Tax code
so the wealthy can pay their fair share of Taxes. It is worth repeating again. We are still
facing a vote on the TPP trade bill which still
contains taking funds from Medicare. On my
July article, I reported Administration and the
Congress are yet to be convinced to not take
an additional $250 million that over the next
ten years which reduces funds that Medicare
uses for patients for renal dialysis services

for those with acute kidney injuries and other

medical procedures not yet identified since
one of the most controversial aspects of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is it
is secret from the public. The trade bill also
gives new authority to the pharmaceuticals to
regulate generic prescription drug prices.
We must remain vigilant to protecting benefits
we have earned through our payroll deductions
while we were working. We are not asking
for a hand out.
Anthony (Tony) Padilla NARVRE
National Vice President

Railroad Retirement Act Program In The Topeka, KS

he National Association of Retired and Veteran Railway Employees, Inc. (NARVRE)

will present a program in the Topeka, KS area to inform railroad industry workers and
retirees about their pension benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act. The 10:00 a.m.
meeting will take place at the Ramada Topes Downtown, 420 SE 6th Avenue in Topeka.
There is no charge for your attendance and participation.
Pension benefits under the Railroad Retirement Act differ from benefits paid under Social
Security a fact not generally known by the non-railroad public. Approximately 8,650 retirees
live in the Second Congressional District of Colorado and there are 20,002 in the state.
In charge of presenting the program will be August Whitey Westphal, Past President,
of North Ridgeville, OH. Also appearing will be NARVRE National President Thomas
Dwyer, Coon Rapids, MN and Tony Padilla, Natal Vice President, Buda TX. They will
outline the solvency of the pension program for railroad retirees and the rights of railroad
retirees under the Railroad Retirement Act. Also appearing will be Jenifer Johnson, RR
Medicare from Augusta.GA and Kathy Hampton, CARE from Temple, TX. Railroad
Retirement will be represented.
Previously the pension for the surviving spouse was reduced drastically when the married
retiree passed away. NARVRE has worked closely with management and labor to provide
funding for an amendment to the Act to allow the survivor to receive no less than what the
retiree was receiving in the month prior to his/her death as is the case under Social Security.
NARVRE was funded over 76 years ago to protect the rights of railroad retirees as granted
by the Railroad Retirement Act of 1937. Since that time NARVRE has fought numerous
battles against encroachment and the dismantling of our railroad retirement system.
NARVRE is the only Federally Chartered Railroad Retiree Organization that has for
its sole purpose the protection, promotion and preservation of the Railroad Retirement
Pension System.
Pickup materials will be available. Widows and Widowers are welcome to attend.
More information call Whitey Westphal (440) 452-8427 or Roger Barr (785) 273-0863

Unit 147s Picnic Dinner

GUEST, J.J. GRABNER,
III (AREA 2 DIRECTOR)
WITH OFFICERS/
MEMBERS,
IN
ATTENDANCE AT UNIT
147S CATERED PICNIC
D I N N E R O N J U LY
8, 2015, BELLEVUE ,
OHIO. FROM LEFT
TO RIGHT: HOWARD
WALLACE, LEGISLATIVE
REPRESENTATIVE; J.J.
GRABNER, III, AREA 2
DIRECTOR; BOB FAY,
PRESIDENT; AND M.F.
PERRY, MEMBERSHIP
CHAIRMAN

NON-PROFIT ORG.
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
KANSAS CITY, KS
PERMIT NO. 522

RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED

National President
Thomas Dwyer
11304 Norway St. NW
Coon Rapids MN 55448-3269
763-757-1501 FAX 763-767-5794
[email protected]

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED

AND VETERAN RAILWAY EMPLOYEES, INC.
509 W REED ST
Moberly, MO 65270
SEPTEMBER, 2015

NARVRE NEWSLETTER
Volume 29 Number 08

National Vice President

Anthony Tony Padilla
303 Black Cap Run
Buda, TX 78610-4978
Home: 512-523-8465
Cell: 512-552-8703
[email protected]

National Secretary-Treasurer
Joyce A. Burton
509 W Reed St
Moberly, MO 65270
660-269-8895
[email protected]

National Legislative Director

Gary M Faley
6324 Calkins Road
Flint, MI 48532-3207
810-733-7256
[email protected]

News deadline 10th of each month

Mail to National Office

From Palmetto, GBA

Medicares Program Integrity Initiatives

Jennifer Johnson

or many years, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) has funded
programs to reduce claims payment errors (either paying too much, paying too
little, or payments being made when none should be). Some of these programs
are handled through systematic checks that look for anomalies and mismatched
services, and some are handled through clinical reviews of specific claims.
The program integrity initiatives pertaining to Railroad Medicare include:
Medically Unlikely Edits (MUEs) These are systematic checks that look for
claims that exceed the maximum number of services expected to be reported, in
most cases, for a single patient by the same provider on a single day.
National Correct Coding Initiative (NCCI) Edits These are also systematic
checks, and they look for combinations of codes that should not be reported
together in all or most situations. Either we would not expect both services
to occur in one treatment, or Medicare does not reimburse both services when
performed together. This could be two codes that represent different methods of
performing the same service, such as a laparoscopic gallbladder removal and an
open incision gallbladder removal. It could also be two codes that are components
of each other, such as a rhythm electrocardiograph (ECG) and a cardiovascular
stress test, which by definition includes an ECG.
Medical Review Program This initiative involves complex reviews by
Medicare (including Railroad Medicare) in which documentation is requested,
and then the reviews determine if the claim was correctly billed and properly
documented, and that the services meet Medicare coverage criteria.
Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) Program This initiative involves
complex reviews in the same manner as the Medical Review program. External
entities include the CERT Review Contractor, the CERT Documentation
Contractor, and the CERT Statistical Contractor, and they work together to review
a random sample of claims and determine an error rate for local Medicare, as
well as Railroad Medicare. They do this by:
* Requesting medical records from providers who submitted claims
* Reviewing claims and medical records for compliance with Medicare
coverage, coding and billing rules
The CERT program calculates an improper payment rate, and it also develops
an improper payment rate by claim type, to measure Medicare (and Railroad
Medicares) performance processing claims correctly.
Working together, these initiatives reduce the number of claims that are
underpaid, overpaid, or should never have been paid.
If you have any questions about your Railroad Medicare coverage, please call
our Beneficiary Contact Center at 800-833-4455, Monday through Friday, from
8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. ET. We encourage you to sign up for email updates. To do so,
visit our website at www.PalmettoGBA.com/RR/Me and click EMail Updates
on the top of the webpage to start the process.
We also encourage you to visit our Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/
MyRRMedicare