Budget Agreement
The budget agreement that is set to last for the next 2 years was presented a few days back and there is some serious good news for the federal employees in that for once, the fed employees’ benefits and incomes have been spared and the debt limit has been raised. A certain amount of relief has also been provided from financial sequestration.
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Apart from this, the budget agreement also allows the approval of laws that would forsake the ability for many retired feds (That fall beneath the civil service retirement system) to absorb increases in medicare. This law dictates that those retired feds that were found guilty of this sequestration would have to pay 54 dollars more in their part B medicare premium accounts every month. This can also be extended to be applicable if there is no COLA for 2017 and the employees that were not “held harmless” will be protected from a substantial monthly insurance amount jump.
In contrast to this, the retired feds that are held harmless will go on and pay the normal 105 dollars (or a little less) every month during the fiscal year 2016. This can be considered a very strong stepping stone in the right direction as it ensures that federal employees don’t always get the last piece of the pie. Here’s hoping that there are no amendments made in these clauses of the proposed budget act.
