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Community Corner

Yorktown Resident Works to Pass a Bill to Protect and Restore Retirees' Benefits

Jack Cohen is passionate about issues facing retirees. He is urging Rep. Nan Hayworth to co-sponsor bipartisan legislation to protect and restore benefits they have earned.

Longtime Yorktown resident and senior citizen Jack Cohen may be retired, but he has no intention of slowing down anytime soon.

He spends his days juggling his duties as executive vice president of the Association of BellTel Retirees, which represents more than 230,000 former Verizon employees, and being a grandparent who cares for his two granddaughters two days a week. He is also a consultant to ProtectSeniors.org, an organization representing the interests of 14.3 million retirees still receiving health benefits from a prior employer.

Cohen is equally passionate about both jobs, but it is the issues facing retirees that get him heated. 

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“All your career you think you don’t have to worry, then you retire and things seem to change,” Cohen said. “Right now I still have health benefits, but Verizon is close to pulling them out from under me.” 

Cohen said he is working diligently to get Rep. Nan Hayworth, R-Mount Kisco, to co-sponsor bipartisan legislation, H.R. 1322, to protect and restore the earned benefits of retirees. This bill, presented to Congress on April 1, currently sits with the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions. It has been modified to be “deficit neutral” and thus should appeal to both major political parties, Cohen said.

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As it stands now, U.S. companies almost always reserve in writing the right to change retiree health plans and there is no law preventing them from cutting or eliminating such benefits.

“If this bill is passed, it will make it illegal for profitable companies to cut health benefits for retirees,” Cohen said.

During the early part of the past decade, Cohen traveled throughout New York State giving speeches at senior centers to motivate retirees to get involved. Ironically, he said, he has never been asked to speak in Yorktown or Putnam County. 

“Evidently, our local senior population is reluctant to jeopardize their blood pressure over discussions of the preservation of their health benefits,” Cohen said. “Too many people are stuck playing bingo and don’t care to get involved.”

Roughly 33 percent of the voting population in Yorktown is above age 55. However, Cohen explained, one obstacle to getting the bill passed is what politicians are banking on most – senior apathy. And that is what seems to frustrate him the most.

“The real power lies in the numbers,” Cohen said. “I urge all seniors to get involved by first reading up on what is going on. If we band together, we are a very powerful group.” 

Cohen started working for New York Telephone (now Verizon) in 1968 and was the staff expense budget manager for the Enterprise Line of Business when he retired in 1994. He was 51 years old but was presented an early retirement package that he could not refuse. Unfortunately, that was the same year his wife, Ilene, was stricken with ovarian cancer. Today, she is a 17-year survivor and a volunteer with Support Connection, a cancer support group based in Yorktown.

Right now, Cohen is working toward getting 1,000 of the 1,400 members of www.ProtectSeniors.org in the 19th Congressional District to attend one of Congresswoman Hayworth’s meetings.

If you are interested in getting involved or want more information, you can reach him at jack.k.cohen@verizon.net

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