Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tuesday, March 12, 2024

In the Friday Open Thread, former state Rep. John Kowalko wrote the following:

Please alert your readers to the fact that Rep. Baumbach’s amendment to his own HB 281 effectively guts the bill and is against the interests of retirees current and future. The bill removes Medicare Advantage (privatization of health care insurance) as an option and the amendment restores it making the boil as worthless to employees as used toilet paper. John Kowalko.

I am here to alert our readers that everything Kowalko wrote is–untrue.  Perhaps it’s because Kowalko loudly resigned from RISE Delaware back in December, citing:

In the interest of transparency and because all of you deserve to be kept fully informed, I am posting my letter of resignation from the RISE executive board below…

I would be remiss if I did not offer a brief explanation of my decision to leave the executive board. My responsibilities and obligations as a board member demand that I be aware of and informed of all critical decisions and discussions related to RISE.

Unfortunately, there have been repeated incidents of crucial information being withheld from me, either inadvertently or deliberately, that could impact RISE in a less than favorable way. There were also individuals, outside of the RISE executive board, who seemed to wield undue influence on matters that I feel should be within the exclusive purview of the board.

Whatever.  Fact is, either he can’t read or can’t see straight.  Or, his having quit before the heavy legislative lifting blinded him to the fact that work still needed to be done.  I bring this up because the bill Kowalko addresses is on today’s House Agenda, making it the big story of the day.

HB 281 (Baumbach) ‘repeals the option of providing health care insurance to state pensioners under Medicare part C, known as a Medicare Advantage Plan’.  Baumbach’s amendment, the one that Kowalko claims would make the bill (not ‘boil’) as ‘worthless to employees as used toilet paper”?  This amendment?  The one that ‘allows a plan under Medicare part C, a Medicare Advantage Plan, as an option for eligible pensioners who are first hired on or after January 1, 2025′?

Not only does it protect existing state employees and retirees, but would protect those hired as state employees for the remainder of this year throughout their government careers and into retirement.  How, exactly, does this suck?  The amendment assures that those who were hired with the promise that retirees would get good health benefits will get those benefits.  Anyone hired after 2024 would already be aware that they may not get the same healthcare benefits when they retire.

I, for one, think this is a great amendment. So good in fact that I question whether the Carney/BHL ass-kissers in the D Caucus will accept it.  We’ll all be watching.  I have no idea what Kowalko was talking about.  Neither does he.

The same cannot be said for HA 2, sponsored by Rep. Yearick, which ‘allows a plan under Medicare part C, a Medicare Advantage Plan, as an option for eligible pensioners who retire on or after January 1, 2028’.  In this case, those nearing retirement would have spent years as state employees laboring under the false assumption that they’d enjoy the same healthcare benefits upon retirement as those who have already retired.  This amendment should be defeated.

Today’s House Agenda also includes companion bill HB 282 (Baumbach), which ‘adds procedural requirements to meetings of the State Employee Benefits Committee (SEBC), revises the membership of the SEBC, and requires that the Secretary of the Department of Human Resources inform State employees and retired State employees (eligible pensioners) about changes in benefits coverages affecting eligible pensioners who are receiving or eligible to receive retirement benefits under the state employees’ pension plan, including proposed changes’.

I doubt that anyone will vote against HB 281 in an election year.  Meaning, ball will soon be in your court, Gov’nor.  BTW, lotsa state employees and retirees live in Wilmington…

As the father of a teacher, I support HB 279 (Heffernan), which ‘allows school employees up to 5 days of bereavement leave under the same circumstances as permitted for state employees’.

Today’s Senate Agenda is less ambitious.  And, no committee meetings until tomorrow in the Senate.

Highlights from today’s scheduled House committee meetings:

HB 299 (Romer) ‘…adds “public libraries” to the definition of “place of public accommodation” for purposes of Delaware’s Equal Accommodations Law. It also directs the Delaware Library Consortium to develop and adopt common policies concerning collection, development, and other topics in order to ensure equitable access and the right to read for all Delawareans.”  Good bill. Business Lapdog Committee.

HB 302 (Bolden) ‘requires all group, blanket, and individual health insurance policies to cover prostate screening for men at high risk for prostate cancer who are over the age of 40.’  Business Lapdog Committee.  OK, the Business Lapdog Committee is not as lapdoggish as it used to be, thanks to the departures of some business-oriented Democrats.  We all know that it isn’t officially the Business Lapdog Committee.  Its monicker is the House Economic Development/Banking/Insurance & Commerce Committee.  However, as long as the Chair is Bill Bush and its vice-chair is Lumpy Carson, the committee is led by lapdogs. As someone once said about sled-dogs, ‘If you’re not the lead dog, the view is always the same.”  The good news?  Lumpy is supposedly retiring, Bush has a great opponent who could well retire him.  Her name?  Monica Shockley Porter.  Check her out.

HB 297 (Shupe) ‘increases the funding required to be secured by a developer to ensure the developer fulfills the developer’s obligations to construct and complete improvements within a subdivision…(d)ue to the rapidly increasing costs of materials and labor, combined with the frequency in which developers have gone out of business or otherwise been unable to complete work required within developments.”  Good bill. Transportation.

HB 149 (Collins) ‘requires personal income tax brackets to be annually adjusted for cost-of-living increases’.  In an effort to try to hide what the bill does, the synopsis suggests that it’s a ‘social justice’ bill designed to ‘offset inflation and not create a greater tax burden on lower income taxpayers. Social justice requires that lower income taxpayers should not face both inflation and higher tax rates at the same time.’  Seems fair. Except–there is no means-testing in the bill, and, like all Rethug tax-related bills, it provides the great bulk of benefits to those making the most money.  The only ‘bracket creep’ in this bill is Rep. Collins.  Revenue & Finance.

Back tomorrow. Will the weakened ‘permit to purchase’ bill resurface in the Senate then?  Hey, if not a cliffhanger, at least it’s a cliff dweller.