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The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents June 2025 Social Security Attacks Continue Steve Kofahl It seems that nearly every day we learn about a disturbing new aspect of the Trump administration’s ongoing attacks on Social Security, the Social Security Administration (SSA), and SSA employees. I write this on May 12, with a Washington Post piece (“The hidden ways Trump and DOGE are shutting down parts of the government”) in today’s Seattle Times. The article reveals that some SSA employees are running out of pens, paper, and printer toner because the US DOGE Service, on February 26, placed a $1 spending limit on each government-issue credit card that managers use to make purchases and pay for services. They cannot pay their phone bills, or for translation services, for example. Less than a dozen people at SSA, an agency with 1,300 work locations, are now authorized to make decisions on any purchase requests, causing lengthy backlogs and delays. How’s that for making government more efficient? Less than a week ago, Wall Street billionaire Frank Bisignano was confirmed 53-47 by the Senate to serve until January 2031 as SSA Commissioner. A self- described “DOGE person,” he was called out by the usually mild-mannered Oregon Senator Ron Wyden for lying to the Senate Finance Committee, when he denied having worked with DOGE and Trump’s Acting SSA Commissioner, Leland Dudek, for months before his confirmation. It was during this time that the SSA website crashed 3 times in 10 days, in March. Bisignano, who comes with a reputation for slashing jobs and treating workers disrespect- fully, has said that he intends to replace SSA 800-number agents with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Speaking of AI, SSA has already been utilizing it to some extent in the disability determination process. The National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI) has formed a task force that issued a report last month citing a number of concerns. One is the presence of bias in medical care and in medical record-keeping. How do we identify and mitigate it? NASI believes it imperative that hu- mans make the adjudicative decisions, including whether to obtain additional existing medical evidence or request a consultative exam paid for by SSA. SSA had more than 84,000 employ- ees in 1980, compared to about 50,000 today, with half as many Americans receiving benefits compared with today. Each of 1,200+ field offices had at least one SSA field representative to reach those who lived far from an office and needed a home visit, or to be served at one of the Agency’s hundreds of con- tact stations (sites like courthouses and social service agencies, most at no cost to SSA). They also made presentations to educate people about SSA programs. There are no more contact stations, and no more field representatives. With SSA having largely withdrawn from communities across our nation, it shouldn’t surprise us that lies about Social Security are believed by too many Americans. Why else would anyone agree with Elon Musk that Social Security is a 90-year Ponzi scheme, that benefits are being paid on the records of 150-year-olds, or that undocumented workers are receiving payments (they’re not!)? Incorrect payments, which include underpayments as well as overpayments, are about 1 percent of total benefits paid. Incorrect payments (which could be greatly reduced by restoring staff) and fraudulent payments are not the same thing, and there is, in fact, very little fraud. Reports of changes that affect eligibility or payment amount are received by SSA, but often go unworked for many months due to job cuts. Implementation of the Social Security Fairness Act, which restored benefits for public retirees who had been subject to Government Pension Offset or the Windfall Elimination Provision, is also being slowed by staffing losses. Nearly three mil- lion records require adjustment, but some won’t be processed for a year. Of 182,000 new applications filed by those who hadn’t applied previously because no payments were due before the law was changed, 15 percent have not been processed. The Trump administration intends to strip all civil service and union rights from about 20 percent of the SSA workforce, including the Administrative Law Judges (ALJs) who conduct dis- ability hearings and render decisions. That would make it easy to intimidate or remove ALJs who allegedly approve too many cases. Thankfully, we have been getting some help from the courts and others. In April, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction to block DOGE from accessing the sensitive personal information in SSA records. On May 7, 15 House Republicans (none from Washington) wrote to Bisignano to express concerns about staff cuts and office closures. Two days later, another judge issued a two-week temporary restraining order blocking implementation of a February 11 executive order directing major “reorganizations” at SSA and 19 other agencies. The Administration appealed to the 9th Circuit within hours. H.R. 2550, the Protecting Ameri- ca’s Workforce Act, which would restore federal employee rights that have been stripped away, already has 220 House co-sponsors. We have a long and difficult fight on our hands, but we can and must win it. We have to pull back the curtain and reveal what’s really going on in the other Washington, reach out wherever possible to tell the story to others, and take action by attending rallies and/or calling members of Congress from both parties. Steve Kofahl is a former President of AFGE 3937, representing Social Security workers, a member of PSARA's Executive Board, and Co-Chair of PSARA's Social Security Task Force. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents July 2025 The “Big, Ugly, Cruel Bill” Michael Righi The actual name for Trump’s domestic policy bill is One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). It is hard to imagine the sycophancy of Republicans, who named it that in order to please our Dear Leader. The bill is not finalized yet, and there are still some differences between the House and Senate versions, but Republicans have crafted it with a variety of gimmicks so that it can be passed on a majority vote with narrow Republican majorities in both houses. A War on the Public Good It is a tax cut bill for the rich, but it’s much more than that. Buried within its more than a thousand pages is the right-wing plan for the future, a war on the public good. Public institutions, collective care for the planet and each other – all of that is to be flattened. There are too many examples. What follows are just a few. Start with the militarization of immigration policy, which we are seeing in the news and on our streets daily. It started with ICE performative cruelty; the bill would add $150 billion to Stephen Miller’s mass deportation campaign. That’s 10,000 more masked and armed ICE goons and a massive increase in detention facilities. That is a police state intruding into our communities. Funding tax credits for clean energy or tax cuts for the wealthy? It’s clear what has to go. Not only will OBBBA cut clean energy programs, it would grant a tax break to oil and gas companies, essentially exempting them from a corporate minimum tax. The bill establishes as a goal to have school voucher programs in every state, despite the fact that these have been voted down several times, even in deep red states. Despite being pushed and funded by institutions like the Gates Foundation, studies of voucher schools prove they underperform public schools. Is that the point, to punish poor and working class families? There’s more, but let’s get to the tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. OBBBA mainly extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, plus some “lipstick on a pig” additional cuts for overtime pay and tips. The bill slashes Medicare, Medicaid, and food stamps, cuts that fall overwhelmingly on working class families. This is unprecedentedly ugly. Past Republican-sponsored tax cuts favored the wealthy and increased inequality. But they didn’t actually take from the poor. The OBBBA benefit cuts reduce the income of the poorest by about $2,000 per year while raising the income of the richest 10% by $12,000. The decline in well-being likely for the lower half of the income distribution would then be similar to a severe recession. Low-income folks are even worse off when tariffs, which are also regressive, are factored in. This is how Republicans are becoming the “party of the working class”. They will piss on you, and explain that it’s raining. And it’s your fault. The Yale School of Public Health estimates that OBBBA will lead to 51,000 additional deaths annually. Debts and Deficits Republican claims that tax cuts will unleash economic growth and so raise tax revenue are complete hogwash; no study, not one, has found any validity in trickle-down economics. That’s just more rain. Reliable analysis of OBBBA predicts it will raise the national debt by somewhere between $3 and $6 tril- lion over the next decade. That’s a wide range, but of course there is a lot of uncertainty. Let’s review some principles. Having the government spend more than it gets in revenue (run a budget deficit) was crucial in 2008, to prevent the financial crisis from becoming a depression. It was crucial in 2020 when COVID shut down the economy. It would also be great if it funded investments in clean energy, schooling, housing or infrastructure. But running deficits to fund tax cuts for the already wealthy? That is what has been happening for the last 45 years, driven by the demands of the rich unwilling to pay even modest taxes. Are deficits and debt becoming a problem? Yes. Bond investors are going to require higher interest rates to lend to the government. Interest costs are becoming a larger and larger part of the government’s budget. Higher interest rates are going to make it harder to buy a house or car, or for governments and firms to build climate investments. Usually it is Republicans who are the “debt scolds”; they use fear of debt to oppose social programs. If they were really worried about debt, they would go after tax cheats (that’s $600 billion a year) and refuse further tax cuts for the rich. But they won’t. They are hypocrites. Will the Trump clown show have serious consequences for the economy? Will ‘the bond market” get nervous about debt and restrain the orgy of tax cutting? It’s not clear yet, but it would surely be a lot better if OBBBA were trashed. That is what would happen in a democracy. Michael Righi is a retired economics professor and a member of the Retiree Advocate editorial board. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents February 2026 Capitol Outlook 2026 A Peak Inside Pam Crone The 2026 Washington State Legislature commenced its 60-day “short” session January 12. Reflection My last year lobbying was the 2020 legislative session. I did not know at the time it would be my last session, with all of us heading home in March. It was the beginning of the pandemic and, my, oh my, how things would change. The next two legislative sessions, 2021 and 2022, were conducted remotely, forever changing the way advocates and legislators did their work. There was both more access and less. How could that be? More access because Washingtonians could testify in hearings from anywhere using their at-home computers or phones. Testifying and having your voice heard would not require a trek up and down I-5 or over I-90 to do so. Less access because health concerns drove legislators to limit in-person meetings with advocates and each other. Something deeply human is lost without that person-to-person contact. But what I remember at the beginning of that last session and the 19 that preceded it was the air of excitement, anticipation, and yes, some dread at embarking on the exhausting legislative marathon. The second Monday in January had the feel of the beginning of a new school term, seeing old friends and the classroom bullies, and gearing up for academic endeavors and a new season of extracurricular activities. In that spirit of reminiscence, here is a haiku for you. A fluttering heart As legislators convene May they do justice PSARA Makes Good on its Commitment PSARA members were out of the gate running in December and early January, meeting with their legislators to advocate for “leveling the playing field,” progressive revenues, affordable housing, climate justice, immigrant fairness and safety, and much more. (See our PSARA legislative webpage for our updated agenda and talking points). Our members met with 25 legislators and/or staff from 11 districts. District leads were Laurie Weidner, Richard Burton, Amy Davis, Bobby Righi, Marilyn Watkins, Angie Bartels, Karen Richter, Vicky Stanich, France Giddings, Tim Burns, Lisa Dekker, Pam and Tom Lux, and Ronnie Schure. It was an Impressive showing pre-session. District leads scheduled the legislator meetings, organized PSARA members in their respective districts, convened planning sessions to prepare for the meetings, and shared information with me, and provided any needed follow up with the legislators. We met our goal of meeting with our legislators early before the crush of a short 60-day session to lay out our 2026 policy priorities. What You Have Always Wanted to Know and Didn’t Know You Wanted to Know Here we go. Test yourself. Take a gander here for the key. How long does the Governor have, before signing a bill passed by the Legislature? To what does “on the Bar” refer? To what does “they are in caucus, again ” refer? How is the House Speaker elected Is the Senate Majority Leader chosen the same way? Blast from the past: what is a Gulchette? Who gets to eat in the Senate Dining Room Making Good Trouble We at PSARA know how to make good trouble. Advocacy and activism begin with being informed. PSARA provides the tools to do that. You can find our dedicated legislative page on the psara.org website. You will find our legislative agenda, talking points on our priorities, a weekly calendar of hearings of interest, and bill links to sign in your support or opposition. Throughout the session, our intrepid Executive Director, Mike Andrew, will send out alerts asking you to contact your legislators. We won’t flood you with alerts so when you do hear from us … it matters. If you are interested in being a part of or contributing to our Government Relations Committee, let Mike know. That’s it for now. Signing off until March. Pam Crone is a retired lobbyist and Chair of PSARA's Government Relations Committee (GRC). Michael Righi is a retired economics professor and a member of the Retiree Advocate Editorial Board. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents September 2025 We Remember Michael Righi Mike Andrew, Karen Richter, Robby Stern Michael Righi, member of the Retiree Advocate Editorial Board, veteran activist, and retired economics professor, died in July. His passing is a huge loss for PSARA and the Retiree Advocate, and a person- al loss for his many friends in and out of PSARA. PSARA sends our deepest condo- lences to Bobby Righi, an equally great activist, writer, and friend. Below, some PSARA leaders who worked closely with Michael share memories of him. Mike Andrew: I don’t remember when I met Michael Righi. He was the kind of person who, once you talked to him a couple of times, you felt like you’d always known him. It may have been in 2012, when I first started working for PSARA, or it may have been before that, in the context of economic or climate justice organizing. He was passionate about both. In any case I was delighted to find out that we shared a political pre-history in the New Communist movement in the 1970s. Michael was wicked smart, but not a show-off about it. He was wickedly funny too. And he was more than willing to turn his droll sense of humor against billionaires and the politicians who abetted them. “Every billionaire is a policy failure,” was one of his favorite taglines. As editor of the Retiree Advocate, I appreciated his ability to take complex economic issues and explain them in simple – but not simplistic – terms any reader could understand. And all in 750 words! I know our readers appreciated it too, because every one of them, without exception, when they heard that he’d died, exclaimed “Oh no! What will we do without his articles?” I also appreciated the fact that Michael – and Bobby too – would pitch in to help with whatever was needed. He could explain cryptocurrency, carry a banner in a march, set up chairs for an event, or stick mailing labels on the latest issue of the Retiree Advocate . He was completely selfless that way. I last saw Michael at Tim Wheeler’s book reading on July 26. I was expecting to see him again a few days later to plan the new issue of the Retiree Advocate. It didn’t work out that way. I’ll miss him. Karen Richter: Michael was a generous and caring person and great friend. His articles in the Advocate helped so many of us understand the complexities of economic justice issues. He had a great sense of humor and was a talented cook. He made the best pizza and paella I ever tasted. Michael was always there when we had rallies, demonstrations, and marches no matter what. He always showed up to help with everything – our mailing parties, membership meeting, concerts you name it he was there. He was one of the best people I've ever known. I will miss him dearly. Robby Stern: Michael was one of the most decent and thoughtful men I have ever known. He was a good and beloved man with an outstanding sense of humor. He played a very important role in our collective work and was someone I was always glad to see and spend time with. As a member of the Retiree Advocate Editorial Board, his good humor, insights, and compassion were consistently present in our deliberations. He helped to make the meetings fun and productive and was a very significant part of creating a quality newsletter month after month. He and Bobby have been an amazing couple and served as a model of lifetime progressive activism. It was always a delight to interact with the two of them at street actions, fundraising events, PSARA meetings and other events supporting the movement for social and economic justice. Michael was both incredibly funny and at the same time determined to provide his good thinking on what we could do in that moment in the fight to create a more just world. As a progressive economist, his monthly articles in the Retiree Advocate were clear and easily readable, not an easy thing to do when discussing economic issues. He helped many of us better understand what forces were at work in our economy that sharply tilts in favor of the very rich and powerful and the avaricious multinational corporations. He also wrote with underlying compassion about how it should be as opposed to how it is. He was an ever-present activist in our efforts to change how the economy works as well as fighting for worker, climate, racial, and gender justice. We will miss Michael enormously and will honor him by carrying on the work he chose as his lifetime mission. Michael will live on in our hearts, our memories, and our thinking about what we should do next to resist autocracy and fascism and build a better world. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents February 2025 Views from the Screen A Review of "A Real Pain" Randy Joseph Film Title: A Real Pain 2024, Directed by Jesse Eisenberg Cast: Jesse Eisenberg as David; Kieran Culkin, Golden Globe winner for his characterization of Benji. Also includes Will Sharpe, Jennifer Grey, Kurt Egyiawan, Liza Sadovy and Daniel Oreskes. Spoiler alert. But it doesn’t matter – this review may help. A good reader is a re-reader, says author and teacher Vladimir Nabokov in his “Lectures on Literature.” I believe the same goes for film. In anticipation of writing a few notes on the movie “A Real Pain” I watched it a second time at home – slowly. I took notes and was able to pause, rewind, and revisit scenes multiple times. A second viewing gave me the ability to hear the tender plaintive piano music of Polish composer Frederic Chopin, which gently holds us throughout the film – mirroring the energy and mood of the story. I loved the film the first time. But the second slow time gut-punched me with dialogue and nuance I originally missed while gulping down the plot. Wikipedia calls it a buddy comedy-drama. Are they kidding? I mean, yes…but no. This is a story about pain and love and loss and the unending human struggle. And a sad story about love between cousins who were like brothers and are now quite different and apart. And a yearn- ing for how things used to be. It is dead wrong to think this is a holocaust film or, as one reviewer quipped, a holocaust comedy. Yes, there is a tour of the Majdanek concentration camp outside of Lublin, Poland. Yes, there is a visit to a Jewish cemetery and poignant views of the Jewish neighborhoods that were once so vibrant with Yiddish conversation, commerce, theatre, poetry, and music. But that is a backdrop – a heartbreaking backdrop to the melody of the love and loss story of two cousins who have been bequeathed a visit to Poland to visit the childhood home of their grandmother, Dory. David and Benji had been very close as children. That is gone now and Da- vid, a nervous, anxious rule follower – successful in outward appearance with career and family – has found it very difficult to be around the chaotic, rebellious, angry, and often miserable yet charming, generous, and loving Benji. He loves him but can no longer tolerate the craziness. Benji deeply misses the closeness and the purpose in life he used to have protecting and soothing David. Their childhood love fuels the conflict and the plot. Benji is hard to describe. He can immediately connect to people and not only charm them but get to their core and bond at a deep emotional level. David’s social skills are much weaker, and he is often awkward and alone. As charming as Benji is, he can turn on those same people in a second with aggression, anger, mocking, and generally horrible alienating behavior. The two moods seem to be tied together push- ing and pulling inside of him. Clearly Benji is damaged in some fundamental way. We don’t get a good understanding of why, and I wouldn’t presume to diagnose. But the film questions whether their collective anxiety and misery is generational trauma, individual psychological differences, and/or simply the human condition. You come to learn just how lost and suffering Benji is. He has recently lost his beloved grandmother (“She was the only person that stuck with me – every- one else left me when I needed them most”), and he lost David a long time ago. He feels abandoned by David and tells the tour people how it used to be. How important he used to be in David’s life. Benji tells the group, “This is the guy I used to have all to myself. David cried for a week at overnight camp, and I held him in my arms soothing him with tales of his sweet mother.” “What happened to you David? You used to cry all the time.” David’s retort, “How is crying all the time a good thing?” David, on the other hand, has man- aged to corral his anxiety and pull a life together, partly by distancing himself from the difficult Benji. We watch as Benji becomes increasingly more difficult, blaming David for his own lateness, berating David for being a wimp back in the day and now. Daring David – almost forcing him – to hide on the train without a ticket and to break through doors that say Don’t Enter. It’s torture for David, yet exhilarating too. It always was. Benji becomes almost impossible to be around. He is A Real Pain. Yet at the same time, through his loud and unbearable truth telling, he enriches everyone’s experience on the tour. On the train to the camp, he completely freaks out and lambasts everyone for calmly eating fancy food and happily sitting in first class on the very same train tracks where their ancestors were thrown onto the trains almost naked, sick, and miserable. The problem with Benji is that he doesn’t just pose the question. He makes a huge scene shaming everyone and dramatically throws himself into third class. But it isn’t a performance. He is a truth teller, and he can barely stand what he sees as the complacency of the others who don’t have his deep feelings. Admirable in so many ways – but destructive. He loses people but has no control over his behavior. In a pivotal scene in a restaurant, the cousins talk about their grandmother, Dory, who always said she survived the Holocaust due to "a thousand miracles." Benji breaks down with grief, lashes out at everyone, and walks out of the restaurant loudly and repeatedly burping so the whole restaurant can hear. It’s David’s turn to break down. In what should have been an award- winning scene, David lets loose when a tour member says, “He’s clearly in pain.” David whips, “Isn’t everybody in pain? Look where our families came from – isn’t everybody wrought??” Another tour colleague says, “Well YOU seem ok David.” David sobs, “I’m NOT! I take pills for obsessive compulsive disorder, I jog, I meditate. I move forward because I know my pain is not exceptional. I don’t want to burden everybody with it (like Benji). David continues sobbing, “I am exhausted by Benji. I love him I hate him I want to kill him I want to BE him. He is so fucking cool and doesn’t give a shit what people think.” He then reveals to the group that Benji is only six months away from having attempted suicide. David is livid with grief and anger at the thought. “How did the product of a thousand miracles overdose on a bottle of sleep- ing pills. (crying) I don’t want to lose him.” The next day, alone with Benji, David tells him that he doesn’t want to lose him. He compares himself to Benji. “Do you see how people love you? When you walk into a room? I would give anything to know what that feels like. To have charm. You light up a room, and then you shit on everything inside it.” In the last scene we see the cousins in the New York airport at the end of their odyssey. They cling to each other. David leaves and reunites with his wife and child. Benji sits down in the crowd- ed airport alone. Isolated in his pain. The future for them is questionable. Watch this movie…Twice. Randy Joseph is a member of PSARA < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents March 2026 Vertical Integration: How UnitedHealth Group Consolidated Market Power Katie Harris In last month’s article on vertical integration, I described how significant shifts in healthcare were taking root around 1984. Vertical integration was falling into place. This is when a company owns all the goods and services needed to carry out its business. So, for example, in 1984, a health care company might buy psychiatric hospitals, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes, and acute care centers, along with manufacturers of hospital equipment, such as diagnostic machines, hospital beds, lifts, wheelchairs, and linens. With these acquisitions, one unit of the company could charge another unit of the company whatever it wanted. Vertical integration eliminates incentives to trim costs or evaluate product quality. In 2026, vertically integrated companies are buying much more than goods and services; they’re reshaping infrastructure. Physicians’ practices and health insurance companies are being purchased. Websites that appear to be independent sources of information about health and health insurance are being acquired. Our health information, from the moment we sign up for insurance to the present moment, becomes a cache of saleable information. What enabled companies like Unit-edHealth Group (UHG) to become vertically integrated behemoths? By 1984, at least two forces were converging: Reagan’s push toward privatization, and a model of integrated service delivery called continuum of care (CoC). Here’s how the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) described privatization under Reagan: ”A strategy to shift the production of goods and services from the Government to the private sector in order to reduce Government expenditures and to take advantage of the efficiencies that normally result when services are provided through the competitive marketplace." Note the striking assumption that efficiencies will “normally result.” I didn’t believe it for a second; once services were privatized, they became much harder to monitor. That difficulty in monitoring has been key in spurring the growth of vertically integrated companies. The move toward a model of service delivery called continuum of care (CoC) was a second important force. A CoC’s goal is to provide a seamless, integrated suite of health, mental health, and social services, oriented around the client. Here’s a definition rolled out at the 1984 annual meeting of the American Hospital Association: [A] client-oriented system of care composed of both services and integrating mechanisms that guides and tracks clients over time through a comprehensive array of health, mental health, and social services spanning all levels of intensity of care." In the 1980s, numerous studies documented the success of CoC in providing long-term improvement in clients’ social and economic well-being. I was a research assistant for a federal resource center at that time. CoC made complete sense to us as a model of service delivery, and we embraced it. By 1994, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had integrated CoCs into its requests-for-proposals (RFP) for services. The move to CoCs was greeted with excitement and relief by local governments and other funders, service providers and clients. It was a hugely complex undertaking as clients’ needs spanned healthcare, housing, and employment. Tracking clients over time posed a significant logistical challenge, as did working across multiple agencies. The US Government sought proposals from the private and nonprofit sectors for services with seamless integration, tailored to individual needs. The preconditions for rapid growth by companies like UnitedHealth Group were in place. By 2024, for example, UHG had invested more than $1 billion in housing, specifically framing its investment in housing stability as key to promoting health equity. UHG leadership's paper, Investing in Housing and Health, Stewards of Aflordable Housing for the Future, asserts that UHG’s housing investments reflect its commitment to health equity: "Investments in affordable housing are part of UnitedHealth Group’s commitment to advance health equity and promote community environments that enable people to live their healthiest lives." But UHG’s embrace of health equity, anchored by housing stability, is sharply at odds with actions by other UHG subsidiaries. This past August, Senators Warren (D-MA) and Wyden (D-OR) called for an investigation into “alarming reports of United Health Group (UHG) padding revenues through cost-cutting programs” for patients in skilled nursing facilities, dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare whose care was administered by UHG subsidiary Optum, through institutional special needs plans (I-SNPs). Optum has offered “heavy incentives” to nursing homes that delayed patients’ hospitalization to meet certain company targets. This increased negative health outcomes such as stroke. Senators Warren and Wyden also asserted that UHG strongly encouraged nursing home patients to sign Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) and Do Not Intubate (DNI) orders to reduce costs. The two Senators sent a second letter on August 27, 2025, referencing “abusive tactics” following a ransomware attack on Change Healthcare, a tech subsidiary of Optum that processes a staggering 45% of U.S. healthcare transactions. During the attack, healthcare providers were unable to determine eligibility, seek approval for treatment or bill for reimbursement, with huge financial consequences for those providers. The senators said: "These reports…underscore the extraordinary market power of United’s massive, vertically-integrated conglomerate: the problem was caused by a breach of United’s payment clearinghouse, Changes [Change Healthcare]; the loans were offered by United’s industrial bank, Optum Financial; and now the company is using its insurance arm as a collection tool." In next month’s look at vertical integration, we’ll explore how and why UHG is changing service delivery through its purchases of physicians’ practices and insurance companies. If you are a medical practitioner who experienced the transition to UHG ownership, or if you are a patient of a practice that made the transition, please email if you’re willing to share your observations: organizer@psara.org . Katie Harris is the Retiree Advocate's copy editor and a member of the Retiree Advocate Editorial Board. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents November 2025 Update on the Fight Against WISeR Anne Watanabe Retiree Advocate readers know that PSARA has been actively pushing back on the upcoming changes to Original Medicare the WISeR pilot program. As reported in previous RA issues, the WISeR model is slated to begin on January 1 in Washington State. As a result, prior authorization (prior approval by Medicare) will then be required for 17 procedures that previously were left up to you and your doctors to decide (although described by CMS as “voluntary,” absent prior authorization, your healthcare provider risks not being reimbursed by Medicare for your treatment). Original Medicare, unlike private Medicare Advantage plans, has in the past rarely required prior authorization. But under WISeR, contractors utilizing artificial intelligence will review doctors’ requests for approval of these procedures. And these contractors will be rewarded with a share of the costs that they “save” for Medicare (i.e., savings from denying or discouraging treatments). CMS introduced WISeR in July with little fanfare or consultation with the public or the medical community. So, few seniors realize this change is coming. This is why the PSARA outreach team has made many presentations during the last few months throughout the Puget Sound area to raise awareness and to push back against WISeR. Many of you have responded with calls and letters to your representatives. Your advocacy is working! PSARA has met with staff of our Congressional leaders, including Rep. DelBene, Senator Patty Murray, and Senator Maria Cantwell. You’ll find an inspiring video about WISeR by Senator Patty Murray on our webpage. We’ve met with staff of the state Office of Insurance Commissioner, Patty Kuderer, and she has now issued a statement critical of WISeR. At press time, Representatives Smith, DelBene, Jayapal, Randall, and Strickland had signed onto the Pocan/Schakowsky House Resolution calling for WISeR to be stopped (see the September issue of the RA for more info on this Resolution). PSARA continues our work to protect Medicare from becoming a privatized system that reaps profits by denying care to seniors and the disabled. Regardless of whether you are in Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan, it benefits all of us to maintain a strong, solvent, publicly-funded Medicare system as a safety net for all seniors and the disabled. Finally, dear Retiree Advocate readers, if you have a personal story you are willing to share about prior authorization and how it affected you or your family’s care, please send it to organizer@psara.org . We know that personal stories show us how real lives are affected, and these can in turn affect public opinion and elected officials. Thank you for joining us in this fight. Anne Watanabe is a member of PSARA's Executive Board and Chair of our Race and Gender Equity (RaGE) Committee < Back to Table of Contents

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 March 2025 Protecting our Assets and Protecting Our Asses Jeff Johnson "We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks, and dead ideas. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.” Arundhati Roy, “The pandemic is a portal,” Financial Times, April 3, 2020 Novelist Arundhati Roy likens the Covid pandemic to a portal which allows us the opportunity to make the same mistakes again and again or to envision a new world where we listen to and fight for our better angels. I believe her poignant imagery and prose brilliantly describe the choice we have facing climate change. Scientists have discovered five past catastrophic events in our history where the diversity of life has plummeted - five periods of species extinction. Given the current rate of species decline and cataclysmic climate disasters, some are arguing that we are entering the Sixth Extinction. The question is, are we just doomed? Or can we mitigate climate change? I believe that if we act thoughtfully, focus on the common good, and act with sufficient urgency, we can go through the climate portal fighting for an equitable, just, and sustainable economy and world. “Protecting Our Assets and Protecting Our Asses” is the first in a series of articles makingthe case for divesting from fossil fuel assets and investing in Green New Deal solutions. The Challenge In January 2016, fresh from being part of the US labor delegation to the Paris Climate Accords, I testified before the Washington State House Environmental Committee, saying that “climate change is an existential crisis.” Speaking as president of the Washington State Labor Council,AFL-CIO, I received raised eyebrows by a number of committee members and a few knowing nods from others. Eight years later, the horrifying devastation caused by hurricanes Helene and Milton in the Southeast and the multiple forest fires around Los Angeles should have convinced even the most skeptical among us that human-caused climate change poses an existential threat to life as we know it. Never, in our lifetimes, has the planet issued such a clear and resounding clarion call to do something. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that we are being told to leave fossil fuels in the ground; to make massive investments in non-fossil fuel renewable energy sources; to electrify our transportation infrastructure; to practice large scale regenerative agriculture; to invest in systemic energy retrofits to public and private buildings; and to figure out a global plan to address the accelerating climate refugee crisis. Unprecedented crises require unprecedented changes. We should invest in Green New Deal projects as if there were literally no tomorrow. Because if we don’t, our tomorrows will be pretty bleak. The Benefit Washington State Initiative 1631 was an attempt to go through the climate portal in an equitable, just, and sustainable way. Had 1631 passed, about $1.5 to $2.0 billion of clean energy projects a year would have been decided by a majority vote of environmental justice, labor, tribal, and environmental community leaders. These projects would have created tens of thousands of jobs with high labor standards – project labor agreements, prevailing wages, apprenticeship utilization standards, and local hire provisions. The initiative would also have created a “Just Transition” fund providing wage replacement, health care and pension benefits, and retraining benefits to displaced workers, keeping both workers and communities whole during the transition period. And of course, carbon emissions would have dramatically fallen, and there would have been no dubious carbon offsets to deal with. What Else Initiative 1631 was defeated by over $30 million contributed by the fossil fuel industry to sway the vote, and by not enough people recognizing the threat that climate change poses to our jobs, income, lives, and property. What has become increasingly clear is that climate change is a job killer, a budget killer, and a species killer. Every additional dollar invested in fossil fuels contributes to arable land becoming increasingly scarce; shrinking fresh water reserves; a further loss of jobs, lives, and property; and tens of millions of climate refugees fleeing for their lives. There is a moral imperative to divest from fossil fuels, since every dollar in- vested in fossil fuels accelerates climate disaster. There is an economic and budgetary imperative to divest from fossil fuels, since every dollar spent cleaning up climate disasters is a dollar not spent on education, health care, addressing poverty and inequality, affordable housing, or public safety. This, of course, translates into thousands of lost jobs and a declining quality of life for most of us. There is a fiscal imperative to divest from fossil fuels, since fossil fuels are consistently underperforming other assets. Sometime in the future, fossil fuel assets will become stranded assets. Financial prudence should, if nothing else, dictate replacing underperforming fossil fuel assets with climate-affirming assets with a promise of higher returns. I have hope that in Washington State we are prescient and bold enough to go through the climate portal by investing in the clean energy economy as if there were no tomorrow. We should dramatically reduce our public and private consumption of fossil fuels and divest our state funds and public and private union pension funds from fossil fuels as well. There is still time left to make good choices. How about we save our assets and our asses at the same time. 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 History: “Neutralize Elderly Voters” Nancy Altman Social Security is the most popular and effective program in America, and Wall Street has spent decades on a campaign to undermine the people’s faith in the system. Think we’re exaggerating? A right- wing think tank called for a “Leninist Strategy on Social Security” back in 1983. Reading it today, much of that strategy looks just like reality. In 1983, Social Security was in a real crisis. But the system’s popularity protected it from destruction, much to Wall Street’s disappointment. Wall Street sees our Social Security system as a cash cow that they can’t access. They want to get their hands on Social Security’s $2.8 trillion trust fund, which is instead invested in US Treasury Bonds. So Wall Street–funded conservative think tanks got to work, outlining a long-term strategy to chip away at the public’s confidence in Social Security. And it was extraordinarily successful. The right-wing Cato Institute published a plan in 1983 called a Leninist Strategy1, designed to “neutralize” elderly voters while continuing to undermine confidence in Social Security among the young. The strategy had two main prongs: Make younger Americans lose faith that Social Security will keep its promise to them, and create an alternative in the form of private accounts that could be gambled on the stock market, similar to 401(k)s. The strategy took a decade to be mainstreamed by the Republicans. In 1988, a presidential candidate sharing his views about Social Security appeared on the scene. Former Delaware governor Pierre S. “Pete” du Pont IV, an heir to those who had thrown money at any FDR-hater they could find, sought the Republican nomination for president and ran on a platform of privatizing Social Security. But George H. W. Bush won the Republican nomination and the election that year. As president, he showed his understanding of the program when he said, “In my budget plan, I say we’ve got to control the growth of . . . mandatory programs but set Social Security aside. It’s not a welfare program. It’s sacrosanct.” In 1994, the House of Representatives returned to Republican control for the first time in over 40 years, the first time since Eisenhower was president. The Republicans had run in support of the “Contract with America,” drafted and promoted by Congressman Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). Unfortunately for those opposing Social Security, the Contract with America expressed implicit support for the program by proposing only minor modifications. However, in 1994, as the law had required since 1956, the Secretary of Health and Human Services appointed 14 members to serve on Social Security’s quadrennial advisory council. The trustees had begun to project a long term deficit in Social Security’s financing occurring somewhere more than 35 years in the future. Included in the report was an appendix, entitled “Developments Since 1983,” which addressed the causes of the projected shortfall. The appendix began by debunking the myth that the inexorable tide of aging baby boomers had anything to do with the projected deficit. The report clarified: “the fundamental ratio of beneficiaries to workers was fully taken into account in the 1983 financing provisions and, as a matter of fact, was known and taken into account well before that.” The report then explained that the shortfall resulted from a variety of factors. By the time the advisory council reported, almost 31 million workers participated in 401(k) plans, which contained assets of over $1 trillion. As the stock market went up and up in the 1990s, these arrangements became more and more popular. This was the opportunity the Leninist Strategy envisioned. More and more Americans were becoming used to private accounts for retirement income. The Cato Institute formed the Project on Social Security Privatization on August 14, 1995. A co-chairman of the project was José Pinero, the Pinochet Minister of Labor who had designed the Chilean system of private accounts. Just as supporters of private accounts had been doing since almost the moment Chile had privatized its Social Security program, Cato touted the Chilean system as a model for the United States, despite its decidedly mixed results. The new right-wing project fueled privatization talk with publications and conferences. In less than a decade, the project could proudly boast that it had “published more than forty books, articles, and reports” criticizing Social Security and advocating private accounts. During these years, Social Security produced large surpluses, as it had been projected to do when the 1977 and 1983 amendments had been enacted—but the federal deficit grew to record deficits. On March 7, 1999, the wealthy governor of Texas announced that he was forming a committee to explore a run for the presidency. Despite his limited political experience and his weaknesses as a speaker, he had one huge asset. He happened to be the son of a former president, and the two men shared the same first and last names, George Bush. Well before Bush formed his exploratory committee, he had been thinking about the presidency and had been thinking about Social Security as well. He had a long history of hostility to the program. As a student at the Harvard Business School in the early 1970s, he had railed against Social Security and other New Deal programs. In his losing bid for a congressional seat in 1978, he had ventured that “people [should] be given the chance to invest [Social Security] the way they feel.” The patience of the anti-Social Security forces seemed to have paid off. They finally had a president who seemed to see the world their way. Despite Social Security’s absence from the campaign, President Bush established a presidential commission, on May 2, 2001, to study and make recommendations about Social Security. The members consisted only of people who were dedicated to destroying Social Security’s universal promise, and it resulted in Bush’s privatization scheme. Unlike most presidential commissions, which are given broad guidelines within which to work, this commission was to be tightly constrained. Among the stipulations dictated by Bush was that the commission’s recommendations “must include individually controlled voluntary personal accounts.” It was not a commission to consider what should be done; rather, it was a commission to advise the president how to do what he had already made up his mind to do. At the same time, Bush used the ad- ministration of government to sow distrust in Social Security. Though Trustees Reports between 2001 and 2004 grew slightly more optimistic, with the projected year of exhaustion of the trust funds slightly further into the future, Social Security Administration publications became more alarmist. No longer confirming that Social Security faced “no immediate crisis,” the publications now warned that the program was “unsustainable,” and “under financed.” Most disturbing was the change in the annual statement sent to all of the 125 million workers aged 25 and over who pay into the trust funds. This statement, completely unsolicited, simply arrives in each worker’s mailbox. The 2001 statement proclaimed, “Will Social Security be there when you retire? Of course it will.” This reassurance was gone by 2002. And in 2005, the unsettling remark “Congress has made changes to the law in the past and can do so at any time” was now in the mailing, just in case workers were feeling too secure. The same tactics are being used today. Republicans in Congress are systematically underfunding the Social Security Administration, forcing office closings and longer wait times to receive the world class service Americans are promised. George W. Bush set the agenda for Trump and Elon Musk: Pass a massive tax cut, then try to cut Social Security in the name of fiscal discipline. Of course, Bush’s gamble failed. But privatizers learned a lesson from that. Instead of hashing it out in public, where Social Security’s overwhelm- ing popularity protects it, Wall Street learned to sharpen their axes behind closed doors – just like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are doing right now. This isn’t a new fight – it is the same thing we have been fighting for almost a century. With our voices together, we beat Bush’s privatization scheme, we beat the neo-liberal drumbeat of President Obama’s fiscal commissions, and we’re going to beat Trump and Elon Musk. The way we win is to go on the offense. We need to EXPAND Social Security and never cut it. Nancy Altman is President of Social Security Works, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Pension Rights Center, a member of the Boards of Directors of the Alliance for Retired Americans Educational Fund, Latinos for a Secure Retirement, and the Institute for America’s Future. < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents August 2025 How To Make America Sick The Trump administration’s plan to “Make America Healthy Again” will make Americans’ health worse. Donald M. Berwick, MD. Reprinted from the Center for American Progress website. It might seem obvious that the United States, the wealthiest country on earth, would have the best health and health care. But we do not. Not even close. So when President Donald Trump, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and their allies in Congress propose to “Make America Healthy Again,” it’s easy to get on board. The trouble is that their plan won’t work. In fact, it will make Americans’ health worse. They are currently proposing to cut Medicaid and Medicare, decimate public health structures, withdraw support for food security and other basic needs, and harm the environment all of which is dead wrong from a scientific viewpoint. There is no disputing that America’s health care system needs a dramatic overhaul. U.S. life expectancy ranks 49th globally at more than four years lower than that of the world’s healthiest countries. Our children’s health ranks 36th among the 38 richest nations. Not a single U.S. state has an average life expectancy longer than that of comparably wealthy nations. If the goal is to make America as healthy as other wealthy nations, it would be hard to do worse than we are doing right now. And for that terrible performance, the United States spends twice as much per capita on health care as the average wealthy country—with more than 110 million Americans struggling with medical debt. So, yes, by all means, let’s “make America healthy.” However, unlike how the Trump administration and RFK Jr. are going about it, doing so requires following the science. In 2015, the revered British epidemiologist Michael Marmot wrote “The Health Gap,” arguably the best playbook for making any country healthier. The book summarizes decades of research on why health varies enormously among places with ostensibly similar conditions. The gap in health outcomes can be between nations, between sub- groups within nations, and even across the tracks in a single city. For example, Black Americans had a lifespan six years shorter than that of white Americans in 2021; residents of west Chicago live 14 years less than residents of the Chicago Loop; and across the city of Boston, lifespan varies by more than two decades. Marmot sorts known causes of health gaps into buckets including early childhood experiences, education, workplace conditions, supports to the elderly, and community “resilience”; he also looks at the impact of attributes such as food security, housing security, transportation systems, clean air, compassionate criminal justice systems, and recreational opportunities. Through that lens, a scientifically guided plan for “making America healthy” is simple to devise: Invest in what drives health. This is why what RFK Jr. and the Trump administration are doing makes no sense. Watch the administration, and it would be hard to find a better way to “make America sick.” It’s like “opposite day”: Every single component of the Marmot playbook is being not only neglected but controverted through the administration’s actions. Let’s run the list. Kids Healthy societies tend to place their bets on safe perinatal care, strong supports for the early years—say, from birth to age 3—and school readiness, which means not only helping children but also their parents. Contrast that with the House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act that instead cuts food stamps by nearly $300 billion and enacts a historic $793 billion cut to Medic- aid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which cover 50 percent of the children in America. Education People in countries and regions with strong educational systems, especially those that include girls and women, tend to live longer. Overall, the U.S. education system ranks 31st in the world, and it varies widely, with many schools performing poorly and many students underachieving. This is neither the teachers’ fault nor the students’. It boils down to ensuring that all children and youth, regardless of where they live or how wealthy their families are, have access to the highest quality education. The proper response would be to pour resources into delivering on that promise. On the contrary, the Trump administration’s plan calls for slashing funding for the Department of Education, cutting support to K-12 programs, and eliminating federal subsidies for student loans. Workers Job security is also foundational to national health. Unionization, which has been backwatered in the United States, is one straight shot to improving worker power. So is raising the federal minimum wage far above its embarrassingly low level of $7.25 per hour, instituting stronger legal protections for workers’ rights, and establishing more equity in tax and compensation policies. The Trump administration, meanwhile, seeks to abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, hamstring the Department of Labor, reduce bargaining rights for federal workers, weaken worker protections, and cut the essential food assistance and health care programs that the working class relies on, all to give massive tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. Seniors How a nation supports its aging and elderly population affects not only how long and well its older citizens live, but also the health and well-being of a country’s entire population. The Trump administration claims to want to protect Medicare—a mainstay of security for those age 65 and older in the country—but study the details of what the president and his congressional allies are doing so far, and you will find steadily weakening protections for coverage, reduced access to care, and thousands of dollars more in out-of-pocket costs. For example, Medicaid, which has been torpedoed by the Trump-signed reconciliation bill, is the primary payer for 63 percent of people in nursing homes. Where are the elderly Americans who rely on that care supposed to go? Communities Healthy communities help ensure access to nutrition, housing, safety, mobility, and opportunity for everyone. The Trump administration is already weakening every one of those things and is poised to damage them further. The administration is hurting public transportation systems and rolling back environmental controls for particulate air pollution. It is also publicly in favor of coal and against wind power, against public housing expansion, against mental health supports to help reduce violence, and has backpedaled on criminal justice reform. Conclusion President Trump and Secretary Kennedy can preach all they want about making us healthy again, but their rhetoric is no substitute for facts. The right way to “Make America Healthy Again” is to invest in the infrastructure, programs, and priorities that we know, based on scientific evidence, will actually improve health—the very same ones that the Trump administration seems intent on destroying. Donald M. Berwick, MD, is President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and a former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). < Back to Table of Contents

The Retire Advocate < Back to Table of Contents October 2025 View From the Screen: A Review of Sorry, Baby Randy Joseph Spoilers… always spoilers. This is not a cozy film but a story wishing for comfort and protection, dreaming of cozy and safe in a world where bad things happen. Where warm knitted sweaters and blankets might really protect us. Sorry, Baby - a film written and directed by the extraordinary Eva Victor, takes place over 3 years, portraying a deep friendship between two PhD students…Agnes (played by Eva Victor) and Lydie (played by Naomi Ackie) – and how Agnes survives if not heals from this bad thing that happens to her. The story is an intense, nuanced, layered character study of Agnes during a terrible time of her life and yet it manages to mix it up with lovely and funny moments. Please don’t be afraid of the sad subject matter. Eva Victor would want us to watch it and not be afraid. It’s life – stick with her. Watch out as well for lots of interesting, relevant literary references and books being read on screen (e.g., the character Milkman from Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon; Giovonni’s Room by James Baldwin; Lolita and more! Even a clip of the movie 12 Angry Men…). Our protagonist Agnes is a star PhD candidate in the Literature Department of a small New England University who lives with her best friend in an old white clapboard house isolated in the woods. They are like 4th grade best friends – they study together, eat together, take baths together - jump up and down with joy for each other – hurt for each other – sacrifice for each other. Agnes comes home late one night not herself…clearly wrecked. Their beloved and admired mentor – novelist and Professor Preston Decker -– has sexually assaulted her. She tells Lydie the story blow by blow. Lydie listens carefully and deeply and puts her in a hot bath and listens more. The rest of the film is about sadness and survival, about healing and not ever healing – loneliness and anger and loss. About the power of love and friendship no matter what. The day after the assault Decker resigns his position and leaves town. She reports the rape to the University. They refuse to investigate because he doesn’t work there anymore. Agnes doesn’t want to call the police. She says she wants him to be a person that wouldn’t do that. If she has him arrested, he would just be a person in prison who does that. The loss of the relationship they had developed over years is profound. In one minute, she loses the person she thought was a protector, mentor, cheerleader and in his place gains a rapist. A few years later she tells a colleague that Decker must have hated her. Because if you like a person, if you respect a person then there is a certain way you treat them. Like a person. The assault from a trusted professor who encouraged her - praised her to the University always - calls her whole academic career into question. Was she really the “extraordinary” writer he said she was? Did she really deserve her PhD? After she is granted her degree, the University offers Agnes Decker’s teaching position and his very office. Although she is thrilled, she also questions whether she earned this or not. Was his recommendation just to keep her quiet? Did the school offer her the job for the same reason? Should she enjoy and prosper in the light-filled office that was formerly his or should she burn it down? Life goes on as it does. She teaches and we get a glimpse of her competency and joy in literature and the teaching of it. We see her tentative relationship with a sweet neighbor. And we see her struggle to connect and be able to picture a future with “what everyone wants.” She can’t see past the sadness. Lydie falls in love – marries and moves to another city. A serious loss. Agnes stays home. Same home. Same school. Lydie worries about Agnes. “Do you ever leave the house?” Their slightly tongue-in-cheek play continues… “Please don’t die,” she says. Agnes responds, "You please don't die." Translation: I love you so much. And in reply I love YOU so much. That never changes. One day 3 years later Agnes falls apart after a jealous colleague Natasha confronts Agnes and spews that Agnes was Decker’s favorite. That even though she, Natasha, had 5-minute sex with Decker … even so - he never read her own dissertation. Agnes drives a long way out of town, sobbing and unable to think or even breathe. She stops at a roadside sandwich shop with her windows up crying. The owner comes out – a middle-aged man with sadnesses of his own – says he knows someone with anxiety attacks and would she open the window and breathe with him please. They sit outside his shop on a curb and talk together about bad things. (One of the best scenes in the movie.) He reassures her that 3 years from a bad thing isn’t very long at all. Time does not heal all. Lydie, wife and baby come to visit Agnes. Agnes gets alone time with the baby. Her face is full of love for this baby. She tells her all the things she wished people would have said to her. She holds the baby up to her face and tells her how sorry she is that bad things will happen to her. Sorry, Baby. She hopes they won’t, but they probably will. She will be there for her, she says. She will listen and not be scared. “You can tell me any bad thought, and I will say yes, I have had that thought 10 times worse. You can tell me you want to kill yourself and I will say, yes, I know that feeling. I will be there for you baby no matter what.” Randy Joseph is a member of PSARA. < Back to Table of Contents