URGENT!!!! For those on Soc Sec & LTD take action

[Poohbear]

Hello all!

There is a pending legal action that you all need to educate yourselves and be aware of. For those who are on Soc Sec and Long term disability this change in this bill is NOT helpful to us and in fact, is detrimental.

I am attaching the links that you can read yourselves but essentially if the changes in this bill are passed through it will mean that if you receive benefits from Long term disability and then say a year later, recieve benefits from Soc Sec. This bill (if passed) would give the LTD carrier the right to SUE you for the money they paid you from day one (let's face it, most of us would have spent this money on cost of living and legal fees..it's not like we have it lying around). Once they recover the $, they often then suddenly deem you not disabled and drop your claim so this, in many cases, would be a double whammy. By the time you pay legal fees out of a lump sum award you may not even have enough to "reimburse" the ltd carrier. Another problem with this proposed change in the law is that many people feel the money should not be reimbursed to the insurance company.....the reason you and/or your employer paid premiums was so the insurance carrier can pay your claims when and if needed. By giving the right to sue you for the reimbursement why are you paying premiums to begin with? In effect, if this passes then the insurance company will be little different than a loan co lending you money for a while. This is NOT what insurance was designed to do and it definately does not leave you, the disabled, as "made whole" (which is one aspect of insurance law). As it is already ERISA law is horrible for those under these LTD plans, let's not let them make things worse for us just so they can raise a profit off of us (they are getting plenty of profit in other ways with our $ already)

Again, read these links for yourselves but PLEASE consider this seriously and contact your congressman.

The below is copied and pasted from an email I got. I have researched this a lot myself and have contacted my local congressman.

"You can read the bill here

http://tinyurl.com/bwu9y

will take you to

http://www.govtrack.us/data/us/bills.text/109/h2830.pdf

(caution:HUGE file-but searchable)

The proposed Amendment, Section 307 of H.R. 2830, (page 333

of 451 pages) allows for the insurance companies to subrogate

for claims they have paid.

As you know, in this group, we always advise people not to repay

the overpayment caused by a Social Security award in a lump sum.

Instead, we advise folks to tell their LTD carrier to take it

out of future payments. Too often, following a lump sum repayment,

the carrier finds the claimant no longer disabled and terminates

the benefits. As the law stands presently, the carrier cannot sue

to recover the money unless it can point to a specific sum of

money and say there is the Social Security money.

This amendment would allow the carriers to sue you, recover from

your Social Security benefits, and then terminate the claim.

Since the Senate passed a bill which does not contain the

subrogation provision, the bill must go to a conference committee.

I urge you to contact your representatives in the House and the

Senate and urge them to vote No on the Pension Protection Act of

2005 if it contains the provision in Section 307 of House Bill

H.R. 2830. Email or fax your comments, or call - it's a quick

call since the staffer who answers will simply record your "vote."

You can read more about it here

http://tinyurl.com/7e8tp

will take you to

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_01/007991.php

and at my good friend, Brian King's blog, here:

http://www.erisa-claims.com/blog/index.cfm

See entry on January 6, 2006. (Brian may have been the first

to notice this effort.)

You can find out the identity of your Congressperson here:

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

You can find out how your Congressperson voted on H.R. 2830 here:"

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2005/roll635.xml

[morgan617]

WOW. This would not be a good thing. It's like they think we buy beemers with this money, snork, right....it's not even enough to live on, and they want to take it back? will look into this more, but this is not good...