CSRS or FERS, NARFE Is For All
Where can CSRS and FERS employees, retirees and survivors get this help they sometimes need? Contact NARFE.
Who can help CSRS and FERS employees, retirees and survivors obtain, understand and, in many cases, decide what to do with the information they seek? Contact NARFE.
Whether one has questions concerning the CSRS or the FERS, NARFE is there to help. From the professional staff at NARFE headquarters, to willing volunteers in your local NARFE chapter, to the knowledgeable members who staff the nearest NARFE Service Center, help is available.
CSRS and FERS employees, retirees and survivors have similar questions and concerns. The federal government provides two excellent retirement plans for its employees, former employees, retirees and survivors. NARFE is the organization dedicated to protecting and enhancing both of these retirement. Systems. It is NARFE who works with the Congress and the federal agencies to assure that all CSRS and FERS employees, retirees and survivors get the information they need, the service they deserve, and fair treatment in the process.
NARFE Helps the Federal Family
Whether covered by the Civil Service Retirement system (CSRS) or the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), federal employees, federal retirees and their survivors need NARFE.
Why NARFE? Because, for more than 80 years, NARFE has been the only organization committed to ensuring a secure future for all federal workers and their families. NARFE was founded in 1921, a year after the enactment o the Civil Service Retirement Act. In the mid-1980s, NARFE played a major role in the design and enactment of the Federal Employees Retirement system to integrate the defined benefit of the CSRS with Social Security. That new law also established the Thrift Savings Plan.
Over the years, NARFE has provided legislative leadership and expert counseling in virtually every area of federal government income and insurance. The benefit programs that NARFE protects and promotes include:
- The Civil Service Retirement and Disability Trust fund, on which both CSRS and FERS participants depend for their defined retirement annuities.
- Social Security, the government’s social insurance program which provides basic retirement and disability income to millions of Americans, the majority of CSRS and all FERS retirees
- The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which provides a wide range of health insurance plans to over nine million CSRS and FERS enrollees and their family members
- Medicare, which offers basic, first-payer health insurance coverage to almost all CSRS and FERS retirees after age 65
- The Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance Program which has offered affordable basic and optional life insurance to all CSRS and FERS workers and retirees since 1954
- The Federal Thrift Savings Plan, which allows both CSRS and FERS employees to participate in a tax-deferred personal retirement savings program
- The Federal Long-Term Care Insurance Program, which makes long-term care insurance accessible to CSRS and FERS employees, retirees and family members.
How Does NARFE Do It?
NARFE’s professional staff, backed by an active grass-roots membership, works with the Congress, and administration and the federal agencies to assure and improve the rights and benefits of employees and annuitants. NARFE legislative goals include the following:
Retirement Income
- Guarantee a regular, annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) abased on a credible Consumer Price Index (CPI) free from political manipulation
- Oppose any proposals that would threaten the fiscal stability of the Civil Service Retirement & Disability Trust Fund
- Advocate legislation to allow retiring employees to elect and pay the cost of survivor spouse benefits in excess of the current allowable amounts
- Convince Congress to provide government retirement income the same tax-preferred treatment accorded Social Security benefits.
Social Security
- Secure legislative repeal or reform of the Government Pension Offset (GPO) and the Windfall Elimination Provision(WEP) of the Social Security Act, which penalize hundreds of thousands of former federal workers
- Oppose private accounts in Social Security, but support reforms fair to present and future beneficiaries that ensure the system’s long-term solvency
- Support indexing the income thresholds beyond which Social Security income is taxed
Federal Employees Health Benefits Program
- Lead efforts to change the tax code so that federal annuitants, as well as employees, can participate in premium conversion and pay FEHBP premiums with pre-tax earnings
- Involve NARFE’s experienced staff in administration and congressional discussions on ways and means to rein in prescription drug and premium costs
- Protect the FEHBP for federal employees and annuitants by opposing plans to include costly and controversial Health savings Accounts (HSAs) and/or establish an indexed flat payment as the government employer‘s share of premiums.
Medicare
- Preserve the current Medicare fee-for-service program with the ability to choose one’s own doctor
- Reduce the late enrollment penalty for Part B
- Ensure that Medicare drug benefit does not result in the loss of reduction of FEHBP drug coverage
- Oppose means-testing of Medicare premiums, increasing the eligibility age for coverage, and any requirement for new co-payments.
Long-Term Care
- Use NARFE’s influence to assure that the new Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program takes advantage of its economy of scale to make underwriting and premiums more reasonable than the private market
- Support tax relief for long-term care premiums, family caregiving services and other long-term care expenses
- Guarantee long-term care benefits for individuals presently eligible for Medicaid, assure that all nursing homes meet standards of care and safety and protect against spousal impoverishment.
NARFE is proud of its past achievements.
NARFE is committed to its goals for the future. And always, NARFE’s success relies on an informed and active membership.
Whether the Civil Service Retirement System or the Federal Employees Retirement system covers your retirement, you need NARFE to protect your benefits and to voice your interests and concerns. NARFE needs you to join in our efforts to ensure that the benefits you earn as an employee are secure for you and your family in retirement. Ours is the only organization that has you and your families best interest as our main goal.
Make a solid investment in your future. Join NARFE Now!
606 North Washington Street
Alexandria, Virginia 22314-1914
Call TOLL FREE: 1-800-627-3394
or visit NARFE Online at http://narfe.org/.
E-mail: memsrvcs@narfe.org
This page was updated 5 July 2007.