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-5198757490226798476 IMG_0563 20230321_115056_edited -5198757490226798476 1/5 Meetings & Events IMG_0137 (1) IMG_6872 France Giddings Karen Richter, Jeff Johnson and Robby Stern IMG_0137 (1) 1/9 PSARA committee meetings and events will be virtual unless otherwise noted, to attend any of these meetings, email organizer@psara.org for the link. Non PSARA events on this calendar are identified as such and have link to the sponsoring agency in the description. Friday Jul 17, 2026 11:30 AM Federal Bldg. 909 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98104 Support our Federal Workforce Support our Federal workers and No Kings Rally. Every Friday at the Seattle Federal Building PLaza. For more information or to support contact: federalbuildingfridays@gmail.com Tuesday Jul 21, 2026 10:30 AM WA State Labor Council Office, 321 16th Ave. S, Seattle Fund Raising Comm. Unless otherwise specified all meetings are Zoom. Please contact Organizer@psara.org for Zoom link. Friday Jul 24, 2026 11:30 AM Federal Bldg. 909 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98104 Support our Federal Workforce Support our Federal workers and No Kings Rally. Every Friday at the Seattle Federal Building PLaza. For more information or to support contact: federalbuildingfridays@gmail.com Friday Jul 31, 2026 11:30 AM Federal Bldg. 909 1st Ave, Seattle, WA 98104 Support our Federal Workforce Support our Federal workers and No Kings Rally. Every Friday at the Seattle Federal Building PLaza. For more information or to support contact: federalbuildingfridays@gmail.com Friday Jul 31, 2026 12:00 PM zoom meeting Presentation on Nuclear Power By Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility This presentation will be on Zoom. For the link, watch for emails from PSARA or email organizer@psara.org Tuesday Sep 1, 2026 PSARA Cookout and Summer Membership Meeting Watch PSARA emails with details

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents February 2025 Pierce County PSARA Committee on the Move Richard Burton Our Pierce County PSARA chapter has gotten underway! We have with tremendous support from PSARA leaders Tim Burns, Karen Richter, Pam Crone, Jessica Bonebright, and Robby Stern. PSARA Executive Board member Lynne Dodson has been chairing the group and was elected to be our delegate to the Pierce County Central Labor Council (PCCLC). Anita Latch and Kit Burns are our alternates to the PCCLC. At our meetings, we’ve had prominent participation from activists in Tacoma Indivisible, UFCW local 367, League of Women Voters of Tacoma- Pierce County, and Retired Public Employees Council (RPEC) of Washing- ton. We are excited about building and adding to these alliances. At our most recent meeting, we made decisions about programs we can put on and campaigns we can help support. These include: Leveling the Playing Field Work- shop. We plan to put on a workshop on this vital topic on March 8. Stay tuned for details. March 18 Lobby Day. We have begun making legislative appointments for Pierce County–area lawmakers for the March 18 PSARA lob- by day and will be turning out as many PSARA activist members as possible. Meetings with Congressmembers. We will be meeting with Congress- members Randall, Strickland, and Schrier – or their office staff – over the next months. We will be pressing them on PSARA’s federal concerns around Social Security and Medicare. As mentioned above, we also plan to articulate our concerns with the contract between ICE and the GEO Group, pertaining to the Northwest Immigrant Detention Center. Social Security Works. A number of members from our new chapter have participated in the strategy meetings about efforts to defend and strengthen both Medicare and Social Security. Tacoma Bill of Rights. UFCW local 367 is likely going to be pushing a municipal initiative in Tacoma, calling for a Workers' Bill of Rights in Tacoma. We hope to help support this effort, which will of course start with signature-gathering. Fighting Senior Center Closures. The City of Tacoma has announced plans to close two senior centers. A campaign to stop the closures at Lighthouse Senior Center and Beacon Activity Center has been launched and PSARA activists will be supporting their efforts. Sadly, Lighthouse, though still open, has no programming. Northwest Immigrant Detention Center. La Resistencia is a wonderful group that has been fighting the ongoing human rights abuses at the Northwest Immigrant Detention Center in Tacoma. The group put on a powerful event in early December– “Melting ICE” – featuring a spectacular and thought-provoking exhibit. The contract between ICE and the GEO group (the private corpo- ration that runs the detention center)is going to expire this September. We will be urging that it not be renewed in meetings with Pierce County Congress- members. Our meetings are held on the second Thursday of the month. New members are always welcome. Richard Burton is PSARA's Co-VP for Outreach < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents March 2025 Behind the Scenes of the WA Coal Act Mary Lou Dickerson and Barbara Carey The Washington Coal Act, SB 5439, is now in the Senate Ways and Means Committee and is unlikely to progress towards passage this year. The Act re- quires our state’s public pension board, the WSIB, to divest from coal and stop making new investments in coal as well. We should not be surprised or disappointed. Significant bills very often take a few years to pass, and this bill has already gathered unexpectedly broad and enthusiastic support during this difficult session. It generated thousands of supportive emailsto senators and developed a coalition of 10 active organizations backing it. We have made huge progress. Bills have a two-year life span. We will take that time to continue to build support and understanding of the need to divest fromthis deadly, dirty, energy source that contributes to climate change throughout the world, including right here in Washington. We will use the interim to raise important issues and question some of the WSIB's claims to legislators. We are enormously thankful to Senator Noel Frame (D-36), who sponsored the Washington Coal Act with six co-sponsors during thecurrent legislative session. The Board provided input to Senator Frame after the bill was introduced, claiming that the WSIB had only $119 million invested incoal and had reduced its exposure to coal from 0.33 percent in 2012 to 0.07percent in 2024. The chair of the Ways and Means Committee’s legislative assistant sent an email to some of the bill proponents saying Sen. Robinson would not be scheduling ahearing for the bill because the WSIB is reducing its coal investments and will probably continue to do so. Unfortunately, the method used by the WSIB to classify coal holdings only takes into account companies whose primary sourceof revenue is thermal coal, according to the MSCI Global Industry Standards Classification (GCIS). This method eliminates giantconglomerates whose huge coal operations may, nevertheless, be dwarfed by their other trading businesses. In contrast, the Global Coal Exit List (GCEL), used in the proposed WA Coal Act, is internationally recognized and used byinvestors, banks, insurance companies, pension funds, and asset management companies around the world to get a clear viewof major coal operations worldwide. Investors representing almost $20 trillion in assets use the GCEL to evaluate theirinvestments. The GCEL turns up $2.6 billion in WSIB coal investments. That’s 24 times more than the WSIB counts in its coal holdings! The GCIS used by the WSIB makes it almost impossible to track substantial coal investments, while the GCEL provides a clear,annually updated status of major coal operations. The WSIB representative also posed the argument to Senator Frame, in an email opposing the WA Coal Act, that some WSIB coal investments “fall in the category of ‘brown-to-green’ investments, whereby companies are actively transitioning fromgreenhouse gas-in- tensive energy production or consumption to renewable energy sources.” WSIB’s example of such an investment, NTPC Ltd, is the largest power company in India – mainly coal-fired plants! That’s a bitshocking. NTPC’s generating capacity of 71 gigawatts is equivalent to 92 Centralia coal plants. While it claims to be adding 60 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2032, it is currently its coal production by the equivalent of 11 Centralia coal plants – not including its many subsidiaries. That certainly doesn't sound like a brown to green investment. The Washington Legislature passed the Clean Energy Transition Act in 2019, which bans the use of coal for energy inWashington after 2025. How is it that a state agency completely stonewalls against the intentions of the Legislature byrefusing to even acknowledge that there are ways it could better align with climate policies and simultaneously up theirgame in complying with their fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their beneficiaries? This is not politics, this is prudence. Pensions are tasked with acting in the long-term best interest of beneficiaries, not makingshort-term gambles. Coal is dying out in the US and is being replaced by much less expensive renewables. Coal is not a good long-term investment. The long-term outlook for US coal is a steady downward trend. According to the Institute for Energy and Economic FinancialAnalysis (IEEFA), it’s possible that all the remaining US coal capacity could be shuttered by 2040. Britain, where the first coal plant was built in 1882, has already closed its last coal plant. Coal produces more green-housegases than any other energy form – not to mention toxic emissions that researchers estimate have caused 460,000 prematuredeaths in the US between 1999 and 2020. Fiduciary duty is a hallmark of the WA Coal Act. The WSIB is good at making investments with healthy returns. California andOregon have both passed coal divestment bills. CalPERS’ returns increased nearly $600 million in 2022 according to Wilshire, CalPERS’ consultant. Moving $2.6 billion from coal over 3-5 years into other investments is not a large ask for WSIB’s $200 billion portfolio. Many thanks to all the PSARA members who wrote to their senators about this significant issue. We ask you to continue toadvocate with us as we move forward toward passage. Mary Lou Dickerson is a former Washington State Representative, PSARA member, and Third Act Washington Policy Lead. Barbara Carey is a Divest Washington co-leader, PSARA member, and Washington State PERS3 Retiree. < Back to Table of Contents

Bill Gates Knows Best: Philanthropy Is Power Bill Gates has been getting a lot of press recently about his “green initiatives” PSARA member Michael Righi discusses why these initiatives are far from good environmental solutions. Read

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents April 2025 Protecting our Assets and Protecting Our Asses -Part 2 Jeff Johnson If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed 10 thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.” E.O. Wilson Naturalist Edward Wilson recognizes a fundamental truth. Humankind’s pen- chant for hubris, our seemingly eternal quest to one up the natural world, has created the conditions for our own demise. As we continue to spew carbon into the atmosphere, we create climate chaos and species decline. To put a point on it, this is not good. And of course, while all of us will be impacted, not all of us will be impacted equally. Those countries, communities, and individuals that did the least to cause climate disaster will be disproportionately impacted by the climate chaos as well as by the inability to recover from its effects. I remember listening to a college lecture in 1971 from an analyst from either the Pentagon or the Department of State. She laid out a scenario of future climatic shifts that would reduce the amount of arable land and potable water, causing massive human migration, species decline, and geo-political unrest. It is no longer hyperbole to recognize that we have crossed over the climate chaos threshold. While the ignorance of climate deniers and their disastrous policies make those pushing for carbon neutrality by 2050 seem reasonable, our hubris prevents us from recognizing the urgency of the moment, even as insects and birds vanish exponentially. We can’t wait for 2050 to act. We need to dramatically reduce carbon pollution and rapidly increase renew- able clean energy now. Our planet is seriously out of balance, egregiously out of equilibrium. I was struck by something I read from the Dalai Lama, that while humans “have the capacity to destroy the earth, so, too, do we have the capacity to protect it.” I believe that we can help the earth rebalance itself. But to do so we must act thoughtfully, equitably, and with a great sense of urgency and purpose. Financial Rebalancing There is an analogous concept of rebalancing in the financial world. Diversified financial portfolios are made up of a variety of assets in different risk classes, i.e., equities, bonds, real estate, hedge funds, government securities, etc. The overall goal for the long-term health of your portfolio is to establish a range of asset allocations that provide the best return for the least risk. You develop a target asset allocation range for different asset classifications and then track how your portfolio values match up to your asset allocations. If you can keep your portfolio in this preferred range over time, your portfolio will be in balance, providing the best returns for the least risk. Of course, as economic activity goes up and down and investment decisions change, asset values rise and fall on a daily, weekly, and quarterly basis. As a consequence, the values of your asset classes change from the targeted allocation you chose. Some will have grown higher than the target range and others fallen below the preferred range. So now what do you do? Well, it’s not rocket science. To rebalance your port- folio, to bring it back into equilibrium, you make strategic decisions to sell off certain assets from one classification and buy assets from another classification. [Note: It doesn’t work quite the same way for private-equity type investments. Often it is more prudent to hold the private-equity type investments until their normal wind-down, but importantly to not invest more]. Financial rebalancing of portfolios is a usual and customary practice. It hap- pens all the time. Washington State Investment and Pension Funds The Washington State Investment Board (WSIB) manages nearly $200 billion of state funds and public employee pension dollars. The WSIB has been a good care-taker of these funds for decades and has earned a positive national reputation as one of the best- managed state funds. The WSIB has approximately $5.5 billion invested in fossil fuel assets. This represents about 2.5 percent of its total portfolio. Given that fossil fuel assets have been significantly underperforming the broad stock market for quite some time; that the concept of financial prudence defined narrowly or more broadly, as laid out in article two of this series, war- rants selling off fossil fuel assets; that financial rebalancing is standard practice in the financial industry; and given the continued decline in the value of fossil fuel assets, there is no good reason not to rebalance our state’s Investment portfolio by selling off fossil fuel assets over the next several years and replacing them with assets that provide a better return for a lower risk. So Now Where Are We? In the first three articles of this series, “Protecting Our Assets, Protecting Our Asses,” we laid out the moral, economic, fiscal, employment, and social needs bases for rebalancing our state funds out of fossil fuels. We made the argument that it is important for our state and our public employee unions to lead the way in countering the financial industry’s $7 trillion investment in fossil fuels since the signing of the Paris Climate Accords. Rebalancing of fossil fuel assets will send a strong message to institutional investors to do likewise. We have also shown that by any measure of financial prudence our state funds and pension funds are not being well served by fossil fuel investments. Finally, we have shown that financial rebalancing is done as a matter of course in the financial industry. And that rebalancing our Washington State funds out of fossil fuels is not only a smart and financially prudent thing to do, it is a step towards rebalancing our earth – protecting both our assets and our asses. Jeff Johnson is a former President of the Washington State Labor Council and the Co-President of PSARA. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents January 2025 Wrapping It Up: Final 2024 Election Results Pam Crone The final tally wasn’t in when we summarized the 2024 Washington State election results in the December Advocate. Some races were too close to call, and seats of retirees were yet to be filled. We can now report on the final results and the composition of the 2025 Legislature. New faces and big Democratic majorities highlight the new session. Washington State Senate The Democrats flipped a seat in the 18th Legislative District. Senator-elect Adrian Cortes replaces Ann Rivers and gives the Senate Democrats a 30-19 majority. Cortes beat Brad Benton, son of former Senator Don Benton. As noted in December, Sen. Jamie Peder- sen, 43rd Leg. District, is the Senate’s new majority leader. Additional new senators are Deb Krishnadasan succeeding Emily Randall in the 26th Legislative District, and former Rep. Tina Orwall appointed to fill the seat formerly held by Karen Keiser in the 33rd. Washington State House Democrats in the House also picked up a seat giving them a 59-39 majority. Adison Richards beat former Representative Jesse Young to take one of the House seats in the 26th Leg. District. Richards replaces Republican Spencer Hutchins, who did not run for re-election. 2025 Session Calendar Session begins Jan. 13 and runs for 105 days. Policy Committee Cut-off in the first house is February 21 Bills must be out of their house of origin March 12 Policy Committee Cut-off in the second house is April 2 Bills must be out of the second house April 16 Session ends April 27 PSARA Dates of Note Legislators began pre-filing their bills Dec. 1. These bills will be formally introduced in the House and Senate on January 13. See our website at psara.org for the link to pre-filed bills. The Government Relations Committee is finalizing PSARA’s 2025 legislative agenda, to be unveiled at the Legislative Conference on January 7. Featured speakers will be former House Speaker Frank Chopp and Senator Bob Hasegawa. Thanks to all our members who have completed and submitted the legislative survey. Please mark your calendars for our in-person Lobby Day in Olympia on March 18. Stay tuned for action. Pam Crone is a retired lobbyist and Chair of PSARA's Government Relations Committee (GRC). < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents July 2025 4,000 Attend No Kings Event at People’s Park, Tacoma! John Alessio Our Vote, Our Choice, Our Power, Our Voice!” “Power to the People, We Insist-Billionaires Should Not Exist!” “Say it Once,Say it Twice, We Will Not Put Up With ICE!” These are just a few of the chants heard at People’s Park Saturday, June 14th. PSARA joined Indivisible Tacoma and many other organizations to create an informative, riveting, and festive event on “No Kings Day”. Other participating groups were: 350 Tacoma; AF- SCME Council 28; Evergreen Resistance Tacoma; Black Panther Party, The TSM Shop; Jewish Voice for Peace Tacoma; La Resistencia; Rainbow Center; The Tacoma Urban League; LD27, LD28, and LD29 Democrats; Oscar’s Enemies; Pierce County Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO; Pierce County Immigration Alliance; Tacoma Democratic Socialists of America; Tacoma Fellowship of Reconciliation; Tacoma for All; Tacoma Veterans for Peace; The Conversation 253; Washington Wildlife First; and United Food & Commercial Workers Local 367. Careful planning included meetings and continuous communication between the leaders of many of these organizations to assure a safe and meaningful protest of the Trump administration’s immoral and unconstitutional activities. Preparation included de-escalation training sessions that resulted in a roaming Safety Team during the event. A First Aid Sation was created, with drinking water, snacks, and other relevant supplies. Various groups had their own information booths, plus a booth for sign-making, and even a face painting booth. People’s Park was humming with excitement and enthusiasm. Four thousand people, peacefully demonstrating, were completely rapt for two and a half hours listening to inspiring speeches about what is being done, and what still needs to be done, to stop Trump and his minions from destroying our democracy and inflicting more grievous harm on large segments of our population. The event started and ended with lively protest music, and there were clever chants interspersed throughout. The importance of local elections was emphasized, and people were encouraged to get involved by door-knocking, providing support to progressive candidates, and especially voting in the upcoming 2025 Primary on August 5 and again in the General on November 4th! Action events were announced, such as a June 18th “Door-Knocking for Introverts” to help people become effective doorknockers. On July 9th Indivisible Tacoma endorsed candidates will participate in a Candidate Forum at 6:30PM at Tahoma Unitarian Universalist Church, 1115 So. 56th, Tacoma. La Resistencia and others will continue to strategize and call for united actions against the activities of ICE and the Northwest Detention Center - a critical court hearing is set for September. Some people may want to attend the “Breakfast With the Sheriff” meetings to remind Pierce county Sheriff Keith Swank that Washington state laws protect people from unconstitutional harassment and arrest. The next scheduled breakfast is 7-9AM Saturday, June 21st. We know he would love to see us. A Facebook message to a friend read: “I was at People’s Park with my brother who is blind and paralyzed on his left side. We had the best day. He felt part of society.” That statement captures the mood and inclusive spirit of the Tacoma “No Kings Day”. Let’s keep it going! John Alessio is a member of PSARA and Indivisible Tacoma. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents April 2026 Washington State Lawmakers Approve “Millionaires Tax” Tim Wheeler Rejecting scores of Republican poison pill amendments, the Washington State House of Representatives on March 11 approved by a 51 to 46 vote a “Millionaires Tax” of 9.9% on annual income over one million dollars. The Senate approved the measure March 10 by a vote of 27 to 21. The measure is now on Gov. Bob Ferguson’s desk and he has promised to sign it into law. The Governor had expressed unhappiness with the Senate approved version arguing that it fails to earmark enough in funding for state programs that serve low-income families, children, and small businesses. But April Berg, an African American legislator from Legislative District 44 northeast of Seattle, pushed through a massive re-write of the 107-page bill, including an amendment that 5 percent of the revenues will be earmarked for the Fair Start for Kids Act. Ferguson hailed the amendment and vowed to sign the bill he called “historic.” The wealth tax is a victory for the labor movement and a grassroots movement that has sprung up in the Evergreen State. The people are outraged by billionaires like Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Microsoft’s Bill Gates who reap billions in untaxed profits each year since Washington has no state income tax. Relying solely on a regressive 8 percent plus sales tax and property taxes, Washington State struggles with multi-billion dollar deficits in covering public services like public education, health care, and transportation costs. The Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, hailed passage of the tax, posting on its Facebook page in banner-sized letters, “Thank You!” An AFL-CIO statement declared, “Special thanks for Speaker Laurie Jinkins for navigating the (Democratic) caucus through the longest floor debate in state history---over 24 hours.” In their drive to block the measure in both houses, the Republicans offered more than 60 poison pill amendments scheming to stall passage during this “short session” of the legislature---only 60 days. But Speaker Jinkins and the Democratic lawmakers refused to yield, voting down one killer amendment after another for a full 24 hours. Speaker Jinkins said of the millionaire tax bill, “Our 90-year-old tax code simply cannot meet the needs of our state.” The Washington State tax code, she added, “asks low-income Washingtonians to pay nearly four times more in taxes than the wealthiest among us relative to income. We need to do better.” The millionaire tax applies to only about 20,000 wealthy Washingtonians and is expected to generate an estimated $3.5 billion to $4 billion in new revenues annually. It grants the wealthy exemptions for houses, investments, and personal property. It does not go into effect until Jan. 1, 2028. During Senate debate several Democratic female members argued that the wealth tax is urgent to replace funds for Medicaid and SNAP nutrition benefits stripped from the Federal budget by President Trump’s “Big Beautiful” budget bill, the trillion dollar cut given to the rich as a tax cut. A Republican Senator called these lawmakers on a “point-of-order” to terminate any references to Trump. The Republican efforts to block the wealth tax instigated a flood of vicious phone calls and email attacks from MAGA extremists targeting the House Democratic Caucus. The email and phone messages “directed at them….include hateful language, racial epithets, and slurs, threats and intimidation.” The lawmakers have “safety concerns for our family members, our staffs, ourselves” and some are taking “safety precautions…that should never be necessary for those simply carrying out the duties of their public office.” Tim Wheeler is a veteran activist and journalist and a leader of PSARA's organizing committee in Clallam County. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents July 2026 Congressional Review Act Makes WISeR Repeal Possible Robby Stern There is a new congressional effort to terminate the WISeR program CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) has imposed on Traditional Medicare beneficiaries in six states including Washington. Senator Ron Wyden (OR) requested that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) determine if this private, for-profit, AI pilot program required congressional approval. The GAO issued an opinion that it did require congressional approval. The GAO stated that WISeR qualifies as an agency rule under the Congressional Review Act. CMS was legally required to seek the approval of Congress for the program. The GAO decided that WISeR changes the rights of both health care providers and Medicare beneficiaries. While CMS argued that the program is “voluntary,” GAO found that in reality health care providers are forced to use the new AI system or face “strict prepayment reviews.” Because of the GAO ruling, Congress can pass a joint resolution under the Congressional Review Act to repeal the WISeR model. There is a 60 day window to take action. Sen. Wyden immediately introduced SJR 192 to terminate WISeR and Senators Murray and Cantwell as well as 18 of their colleagues are original co-sponsors of the resolution. Rep. Landsman and DelBene introduced a companion resolution in the House, HJR 187. SJR 192 is better positioned because of the smaller number of co-sponsors needed to bring WISeR to the floor for a vote. The resolution was assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee and on June 9th, the Judiciary Committee discharged SJR to the Senate floor calendar. Under the provisions of the Congressional Review Act, SJR 192 relating to the WISeR program must be brought to the Senate floor for a vote. Unfortunately, the majority leader, Sen. John Thune, determines the date the vote will take place. If it passes the Senate with a simple majority (a big if ), it then goes to the House, and if the House passes the Resolution, WISeR is terminated. The good news on the House side is that very recently, a House subcommittee, working on the 2027 Health and Human Services budget allocation, voted unanimously to defund WISeR in the coming fiscal year. That amendment is a long way from actually being in the next fiscal year budget but it is an indication that WISeR is unfavorably viewed by both Democrats and Republicans. With all of this interesting news, it is still a bit of a long-shot that this Congress will terminate WISeR. If SJR 192 passes the Senate, we will need to act collectively to get as many Washington House members as possible to support the Resolution. Stay tuned and we will be in touch about SJR 192. At this point, sending a message to Senators Murray and Cantwell thanking them for being original co-sponsors of SJR 192 relating to the WISeR program would be a very good thing to do. Robby Stern is President of the PSARA Education Fund and a member of the PSARA Executive Board < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents February 2025 Warning: Trump's Nominees May Be Hazardous to Your Health Mike Andrew Most of Donald Trump’s high-level nominees will be confirmed by a Republican-controlled Senate. That’s not good news. For PSARA members – and anyone else who is concerned about protecting our rights to affordable, science-based health care – two are especially problematic: Dr. Mehmet Oz and Robert Kennedy, Jr. Mehmet Oz: From Respected Doctor to Snake Oil Salesman Oz has been picked to head CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services), the agency that manages Medicare and works with state government to oversee Medicaid. Oz was once a respected heart surgeon and a professor at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. He then became a TV celebrity, appearing regularly on the Oprah Winfrey Show from 2004 through 2009. Winfrey then began producing Oz’s own TV show, on which he promoted so-called “alternative medicine” schemes. In 2012, Oz entered into an arrangement with Usana Health Sciences, a multi-level marketing company selling “nutrition” supplements. Oz was paid over $50 million over a five-year period to promote Usana products on his show. During the COVID epidemic, Oz falsely claimed the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine is an effective treatment for COVID-19. What Oz did not reveal at the time was that he owns at least $630,000 of stock in two companies that manufacture or distribute hydroxychloroquine, Thermo Fisher and McKesson Corporation. Not only is the drug ineffective against the COVID virus, but it can also actively harm patients who take it to combat COVID-19, according to the World Health Organization. Along with internet entrepreneur Jeff Arnold, Oz is also a an owner of Sharec- are, Inc., an online medical “information” venue that accepts paid advertisers and promotes the use of their products. Among their advertisers: Colgate-Pal- molive; Pfizer; Unilever (Dove skin-care products); health insurer UnitedHealth- care; and Walgreens drug stores. All this naked profiteering and all these potential conflicts of interest should be disqualifying in and of themselves. But wait! There’s more. We haven’t even gotten to Oz’s views on Medicare, the public health service he’ll be overseeing in the Trump administration. You remember the old saying about the fox guarding the henhouse? Oz thinks of health care as just another commodity. If you’re rich enough to pay for good care, fine. If you’re not… Well, Oz has already told us what he foresees for low-income Americans. I In a 2012 speech to the National Governors Association, Oz declared that "(low-income people) don’t have the right to health, but they have a right to access – a chance to get that health." How do they “get that health?” Oz proposed that lawmakers host cheap 15-minute health screenings “in a festival-like setting" to help those who are uninsured. During his 2020 campaign for the US Senate, Oz announced a health care plan, which he called "Medicare Ad- vantage for All.” That’s right, Oz wants to turn all health care in the US over to private insurance companies and all the overpayments, outright fraud, de- lays, and denial of claims that go along with private Medicare Advantage plans. Oz will be a disaster in his role as head of CMS. RFK Jr.: The Worm Ate More Than We Thought Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has been nominated to be the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and therefore Dr. Oz’s boss. True, RFK Jr. has some interesting ideas about eating healthy foods and restricting artificial additives, but his views overall align with the contrarian anti-science ideology of right-wing populism. Kennedy chairs the Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group he joined in 2015. The group claims that exposure to vaccines, certain chemicals, and radiation has caused a wide range of conditions in many American children, including autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), food allergies, cancer, and autoimmune diseases. Children's Health Defense has actively campaigned against vaccines, fluoridation of drinking water, acetaminophen, aluminum, and wireless communication, among other things. The group has been identified as one of two major buyers of anti- vaccine Facebook advertising in late 2018 and early 2019. Kennedy and Children's Health Defense have falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy promoted multiple conspiracy theories related to COVID, including false claims that Anthony Fauci and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation were trying to profit off a vaccine, and suggesting that Bill Gates would cut off access to money of people who do not get vaccinated, allowing them to starve. In August 2020, Kennedy appeared in an hour-long interview with Alec Baldwin on Instagram and touted a number of incorrect and misleading claims about vac- cines and public health measures related to the pandemic. Public health officials and scientists criticized Baldwin for letting Kennedy's claims go unchallenged. In addition, Kennedy has spread the false HIV/AIDS denialist claim that no one has isolated the HIV virion and "No one has been able to point to a study that demonstrates their hypothesis using accepted scientific proofs." He has also asserted that anti-HIV drugs, which have saved millions of HIV-positive patients, are toxic and should be banned. The Kennedy-Oz team managing HHS and CMS would be a one-two punch to the gut for affordable, science-based health care in the US. Mike Andrew is the Editor of the Advocate and Executive Director of PSARA < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents July 2026 JCIJ and the Incredible Accompaniment Program An Interview with Dina Burstein and Dick Stein, Part 1 Bobby Righi and Angie Bartels Bullies tend to prey upon the most vulnerable people in their midst. Donald Trump and his treatment of immigrants in our country is a clear example of this. In both of his terms, Trump placed immigrants, those living here and those trying to enter, in the crosshairs of his racist and punitive immigration policies. Citizen action is our recourse to push back, and this story is an example of how we can use that weapon to create something beautiful. We sat down with Dina Burstein and Dick Stein, two founding members of the Accompaniment Program through JCIJ (Jewish Coalition for Immigrant Justice) to listen to their experiences. In December of 2018, Dick was looking for post retirement options for volunteering. He got an email from a family member about accompaniment training. “That's the kind of thing I’m actually looking for,” he thought, so he went to the training. There were about 50 people in attendance, and each person introduced themselves and stated how they found out about accompaniment. Nearly everyone in the room gave some variation of, “Dina said I should do this.” Sound familiar? By the end of the meeting, he had met Dina in person. At that time, Dina had her own action group, which was similar to JCIJ, and through that she became involved with accompaniment. When Trump first became president, many people were asking themselves, “What can we do?” WAISN (Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network) was just starting up and announced that they would have an accompaniment program. Dina started going to the meetings, getting to know the staff and accompanying immigrants to ICE appointments. Soon Dick would join her. They began working with the Church Council of Greater Seattle to set up an accompaniment program. The committee was called ACT, Accompaniment Core Team. “From the beginning, it was exciting and it was interesting to notice that the entire group was composed of Jewish people! It was as part of the formation of WAISN that we began to do this work, and we continued to attend the WAISN monthly meetings, conferences and workshops. We also accepted the leadership of WAISN, which was founded and led by immigrants,” Dina said. The program began ramping up by 2019. They had flyers in various languages, and they met with groups like public defender associations, immigration attorneys and veteran groups, and urged them to tell their members to call the Church Council hotline and request accompaniment. “We designated the term ‘community member’ (CM) for the immigrants we accompanied,” Dina recalled. “Once we had the referral, we would then look for volunteers to attend the immigration appointment with the CM. This started at a very slow pace with approximately one or two accompaniments per week.” When COVID hit, the program had to adapt. All the courts and the offices where immigrants had their check-in appointments were closed. No one had appointments during this time but there was a tremendous need among people not authorized to work, such as rental assistance, rides and merely purchasing food. The Church Council and most of the accompaniment volunteers pivoted to doing direct supply of mutual aid. WAISN referred many people to the program, but people also came by word-of-mouth and through the Church Council. Following the pandemic, the Church Council bequeathed the accompaniment program to the newly formed JCIJ, while continuing to run an immigrant support group called Grupo de Solidaridad. Once the second Trump administration came in, the number of referrals began increasing substantially. The need for accompaniment continuously grew and JCIJ was there to meet the need, to take responsibility for creating and running a program and training new volunteers. A system was created where Dispatch oversees the accompaniment and pulls together the team of volunteers; Intake reaches out to CMs to prepare them for the ICE appointment or hearing, gathers background information, advises CMs about safety measures, develops a plan for their children in the event the CM is detained, and gets an emergency contact for each CM in the event of an emergency. Accompaniment Volunteers (AV) meet the CM before the appointment and try to walk with them throughout, bearing witness, providing support and other resources as the needs of the family become known through the process. In the case where a CM is detained, AVs contact the emergency contact person, move the CM’s car, and provide resource information so that family can contact the CM while in detention. There are currently about 160 volunteers working on 15-18 accompaniments per week. Part of WAISN’s mission is to provide accompaniment and rapid response all over the state, particularly in Eastern Washington. Coordination through WASIN with other immigrant support programs around the state has been essential and fruitful. There are ICE offices in several areas of the state for check-ins and biometrics, but people from all over the state have to come to the immigration court in downtown Seattle. Volunteers from other organizations provide transportation to CMs, often in the wee hours of the morning if the CM has a morning hearing, and coordinate with JCIJ volunteers for accompaniment. JCIJ volunteers work with other organizations in providing resources for basic needs and help completing immigration forms. “A network of groups and agencies around the state, including WAISN, holds a monthly leadership meeting where we share updates and best practices,” Dina and Dick explained. “JCIJ has also done accompaniment trainings with other groups where we share all our materials and resources. There’s no territoriality involved in this. We share our documents and tell others to use, amend, and tailor them to meet their own needs. We’re proud to say that JCIJ has been lauded at our monthly leadership meetings for our work, the resources we’ve developed, the kindness and helpfulness of AVs, and our sharing with other groups. A lot of sharing. We received a small grant to reach out to other organizations and train their volunteers for their organization.” Bobby Righi is Co-Chair of PSARA's Climate and Environmental Justrice Committee and a volunteer AV. Angie Bartels is PSARA's Membership VP. Editor's Note: Part 2 of this interview will appear in next month's Retiree Advocate < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents May 2026 Vertical Integration: Fighting Monopoly Katie Harris In "Vertical Integration – How United Health Group Consolidated Power" (see the March, 2026, Retiree Advocate ), I described how vertical integration in health care enables a company, such as UnitedHealth Group (UHG), to own interrelated goods and services pertaining to the business of medical care. One unit of the company can charge another unit of the company whatever it wants, with few exceptions. For example, an acute care facility might buy expensive diagnostic equipment from another entity owned by UHG. Vertical integration eliminates incentives to trim costs or evaluate product quality. Increasing market share brings with it leverage in negotiations with profound consequences for smaller players. UHG’s breadth is staggering, including, for example, medical financing, data processing and information management. The year 2010 marked a major strategic shift for health insurance companies that hastened the pace of vertical integration in health care. What changed? The Sunlight Report, a deep dive into UnitedHealth Group’s acquisition strategies, identified two factors. First, consolidation of the health insurance industry had been so robust that there were few players left and few opportunities to pick up underperforming companies to grow market share and profitability. Second, 2010 is when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became law. The ACA required that 80% - 85% of health insurance premiums be spent on health care. Any excess would have to be returned to customers. However, this provision didn’t apply to delivery of health care services. Buying physicians’ practices and clinics provided opportunities to both inflate the percentage of insurance premiums spent on health care delivery, and channel UHG’s nearly 50 million insurance customers into receiving care through those medical practices. But physicians also had to be receptive to buy-outs. The American Hospital Association’s Physician Practice Acquisitions: What Drives Them and Implications for Consumers and Payers , cites the overwhelming administrative burden and lack of bargaining power in negotiating rates as key factors in small medical practices throwing in the towel. UHG now employs more than 10 percent of physicians in the United States. Even larger practices can’t break even. The late Polyclinic, a 101-year old, 210-member, physician-owned practice in Seattle, sold to UHG in 2018. Poly-clinic, now doing business as Optum Care, is where I receive my medical care. At the time of the transition, I asked each of my doctors why they sold. My doctors – those who remained, that is – described defeat; they could not grow the scope of the practice, such as palliative care, to be comprehensive, current, and competitive without resources they didn’t have. According to the Seattle Times , whereas 38 percent of Washington’s physicians were in solo practice in 1996, less than 4 percent maintained independent practices as of 2018. The attractiveness of acquiring physicians’ practices doesn’t just apply to publicly traded companies such as UHG. In its research study, the Association of Private Equity Acquisition of Physician Practices With Changes in Health Care Spending and Utilization , the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) found that the acquisition of physicians’ practices was associated with increased spending on health care, such as allowed billables and more frequent visits per patient. The dismantling of the Department of Justice is taking its toll on addressing these issues. As online news service Disruption Banking’s Richardson Chinonyerem notes, “The deeper risk isn’t that United Health is guilty of fraud; it’s that America’s institutional ability to hold such power accountable is evaporating. "Numerous criminal and civil suits are stalled, delaying addressing UHG’s infrastructure, its practices and their impact on service quality, cost, and inability of non-affiliated service providers to compete. What to do in the absence of action on the executive side? Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have introduced the Break Up Big Medicine Act (S3822) to force an end to consolidation of medical goods and services, financing, data management, and market positioning. “There’s no question that massive health care companies have created layers of complexity to jack up the price of everything from prescription drugs to a visit to the doctor. The only way to make health care more affordable is to break up these health care conglomerates,” said Senator Warren. “Our bill would be a monumental step towards ending the stranglehold that corporate giants have on our broken health care system.” Congressmember Jayapal expects a companion bill to be introduced in the House. This legislation is modeled after the Glass-Spiegel Act, passed in 1933, which separated investment and commercial banking activities in response to involvement in stock market investment. While the legislation won’t pass before the mid-terms, its prospects might improve thereafter. Still, we can anticipate that the staggering profits of the health care industry behemoths will be channeled into massive resistance to efforts to break them up. At the state level, in Washington State, most efforts to rein in vertical integration in healthcare have been defeated by industry lobbying. In the 2026 legislative session, SB 5387, died. It sought to limit corporate involvement in the practice of medicine. Another bill, HB 2548, that did pass, gives the state more oversight over mergers and acquisitions related to healthcare. Washington State’s health advocates are working overtime to overcome the power of the insurance and hospital lobbyists, but it's been an uphill climb. The PSARA Education Fund will work to integrate into our educational forums and written materials information about the dangers of vertical integration and the need to pass the Break Up Big Medicine Act. PSARA will join with local allies to advocate that our WA Senators and Representatives cosponsor the legislation and work with national allies to position the legislation for passage after the 2028 election. Additionally, PSARA will work with state legislators and allies to reverse corporate control of medicine at the state level. Katie Harris is copy editor for the Retiree Advocate and a member of our editorial board < Back to Table of Contents