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Archives for September 2021

US, EU agree to further trade and technology talks

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and the European Union agreed Wednesday to create 10 panels to explore and recommend solutions to a variety of trade disputes and challenges.

During two days of trade and technology talks in Pittsburgh, they set up 10 working groups to go over issues ranging from climate and clean tech and technology standards to global trade issues, including tariffs that have strained U.S.-EU relations and predatory commercial practices by China.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Trade Representative Katherine Tai led the U.S. delegation, accompanied by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for the inaugural meeting of the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council. The meeting took place in an atmosphere clouded by recent EU anger over being excluded from a new U.S.-British-Australian security initiative for the Indo-Pacific that aims to counter China’s increasing assertiveness in the region.

In a joint statement released after Wednesday’s discussions, the two sides agreed on the need to maintain investment screening and export controls, affirmed their intention to develop artificial intelligence systems that are “innovative and trustworthy” and “respect universal human rights and shared democratic values,” and committed to partnering on a rebalance of semi-conductor supply chains.

They also agreed that the working group on export controls would meet again Oct. 27.

The two sides had been hoping to make progress on several disputes, including U.S. tariffs on EU steel and aluminum imports, and a unified stance against predatory Chinese commercial policies. But the 17-page joint statement made no specific mention of either issue and contained no references to China by name.

Administration officials had said the talks in Pittsburgh would mark the start of a new trans=Atlantic process that would focus on semiconductors, supply chains, vaccines and climate change, along with studies on artificial intelligence and high-tech telecommunications, notably advanced 6G networks.

The White House, in part, viewed the gathering as an opportunity to renew its push for improved coordination against what the administration sees as coercive and unfair trade practices by Beijing.

The administration had been expected to underscore that the United States and Europe need to continue to work on building resilience against China and other countries engaging in unfair economic practices, according to a person familiar with U.S. preparations. The person was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

But it was unclear how much of an appetite there is among some European allies to push harder on Beijing. In short public remarks, neither the American side nor the European Commission delegation, headed by its two executive vice-presidents, Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis, made mention of the matter.

Launched in June during Biden’s visit to Europe, the TTC attracted little attention initially, but it became a focal point for growing tensions between the U.S. and France, as the government in Paris sought to delay this meeting.

Those tensions exploded earlier this month when the U.S., Britain and Australia announced their new Indo-Pacific security initiative, known as AUKUS, that pointedly excluded France and the EU, and most immediately resulted in the cancellation of a multibillion-dollar Australian-French submarine contract. France reacted with rage to the announcement, which it called a “stab in the back” by ostensible allies, and recalled its ambassadors to the United States and Australia.

Among the French complaints, which have been echoed by EU leaders, are that the European Union has an active and important role in the Indo-Pacific and that any move to blunt Chinese influence there or elsewhere will not be successful without it.

Biden, at June’s Group of Seven summit in Carbis Bay, England, successfully pressed fellow leaders to include specific language criticizing China’s use of forced labor and other human rights abuses in their joint communique.

Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Japan largely endorsed the Biden administration’s position, while Germany, Italy and the European Union showed hesitancy during the talks.

The Pittsburgh talks came as the Biden administration is looking to soon complete its review of the Trump administration’s trade policies toward China.

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Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Josh Boak in Washington and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.

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Small towns brace for change, prosperity with Ford’s arrival

STANTON, Tenn. (AP) — Lesa Tard expects to serve up more hot wings and cheeseburgers when the clean energy revolution comes to Stanton with Ford’s plans to build a factory to produce electric pickups. So she’s making plans to expand along with the tiny West Tennessee town.

Her diner is strategically situated at the busiest intersection in the community of about 450, and she’s looking forward to serving the thousands of workers who will arrive once construction begins and a sprawling vehicle and battery manufacturing complex opens.

“I don’t see anything but great things happening,” said Tard, who operates Suga’s Diner with her husband. “It will be good for the area because people, once they start coming down here to work, some people might want to relocate, and the community can grow.”

Stanton is one of two small Southern towns likely to undergo dramatic transformations in the wake of Monday’s announcement by Ford that it will put Stanton and Glendale, Kentucky, at the center of its plans to ramp up electric vehicle production.

Together with its battery partner, SK Innovation of South Korea, Ford says it will spend $5.6 billion in Stanton, where it will build a factory to produce electric F-Series pickup trucks. A joint venture called BlueOvalSK will construct a battery factory on the same site near Memphis, plus twin battery plants in Glendale in central Kentucky. Ford estimated the Kentucky investment at $5.8 billion. The projects will create an estimated 10,800 jobs and shift the automaker’s future manufacturing footprint toward the South.

Residents of both towns eye the changes with a mix of wary optimism and wistfulness, aware that a way of life they’ve grown accustomed to may be on the cusp of turning into something unrecognizable — but also prosperous.

As Ford unveiled its plans Monday evening to build two battery manufacturing plants outside Glendale, residents were relishing the slower-paced rhythms of life in the tightknit Kentucky farming community ringed by corn and soybean fields. From front porches to the parking lot at a general store, they wondered if those days are numbered.

Residents sounded hopeful that the promise of 5,000 jobs will create more opportunities for young people to stick around. But they worried about problems that rapid growth can create.

“Yes, we need jobs,” Nikki Basham said. “Yes, it will help the economy. There are pros and cons. Glendale is a small town, you come to kind of get away. I guess we’ll see how it’s going to go.”

Basham, the mom of two young children, has lived in the Hardin County community of a few hundred for 17 years, since she was a teenager. She said it’s important for the hamlet to grow but she also likes the quiet lifestyle, with one main road leading in and out of town.

“I don’t really want to be bombarded with a bunch of traffic,” she said.

Amanda Medley said the battery plants will open up opportunities for young adults who now often have to go to Louisville, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north, to find work.

“There’s not a lot of younger people that stay here,” said Medley, a volunteer firefighter. “They go off to school. They move to other places. Maybe we’ll keep some of the younger people around.”

The plants could draw workers from a broad stretch of Kentucky. Hardin County had a 3.7% unemployment rate in August, and the highest jobless rate in its eight-county region was 4.4%.

Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford, at an event Tuesday outside the Kentucky Capitol in Frankfort, promised that the automaker will be “a good neighbor and work hard to enrich and give back to the communities that we’re joining.” In recent years, Ford donated $6.5 million through its philanthropic arm, the Ford Fund, to causes that support communities across Kentucky, the company said. Ford has two vehicle assembly plants in Louisville.

In Glendale, big changes are expected for the business district, which stretches less than a block and where the shops were adorned with mums and Halloween decorations. Now, the main form of commerce is nostalgia. The community has a bevy of antique stores, but perhaps its best-known business is The Whistle Stop restaurant, a decades-old fixture that serves up fried green tomatoes, country fried steaks, fried chicken and pies, washed down with sweet tea.

At the restaurant, there’s already talk of opening the upstairs area for dining and creating an area for outdoor seating to accommodate the influx of workers and, possibly, new area residents, said Jamie Henley, the restaurant’s director of operations.

“It’s kind of like scratching off a lottery ticket and winning,” she said.

Tard is making her own expansion plans. She hopes to add staff, expand operating hours and make her 34-seat diner bigger.

“Right now, it’s very quiet here. Everything shuts down about 7 or 8 o’clock,” Tard said. “At 8 o’clock, it’s a ghost town. You’re going to have traffic all day, all night.”

The two Kentucky battery plants will be built on a 1,551-acre (627-hectare) site outside Glendale near Interstate 65. The site was offered two decades ago when Kentucky unsuccessfully tried to land a Hyundai auto manufacturing plant that ultimately located in Alabama.

The state kept pitching the Glendale site, spanning the tenure of multiple governors, and lost out on other industrial prospects until Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear landed the massive battery plants.

“Everyone’s known for a really long time that something is coming,” said Glendale resident Laura Tabb. “So this isn’t a huge shock knowing that someone is coming. Everyone’s pretty much been waiting for close to 20 years for this to actually happen.”

It will come as a shock to some, however. On a quiet Glendale side street recently, two cats lounged in the middle of the road, near a makeshift “Cat Crossing” sign urging drivers to slow down, impervious to what’s in store.

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Schreiner reported in Glendale, Kentucky.

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AT&T to require vaccines for 90,000 of its union workers

AT&T has become one of the largest employers in the U.S. to mandate vaccines for a significant number of frontline workers.

The telecom company said Wednesday that its employees in the Communications Workers of America union will be required to be fully vaccinated by Feb. 1, “unless they get an approved job accommodation.”

CWA represents about 90,000 AT&T workers, the union said. It is the largest union at the company, which had about 230,000 employees as of the end of January.

The Dallas company said it is extending a vaccination policy that it set for managers in August that required them to be vaccinated by Oct. 11. Unlike the federal government’s vaccine mandate for large employers, AT&T is not offering employees the option to take a weekly test instead of getting inoculated.

The federal mandate, an effort to push more Americans to get vaccinated, will cover as many as 100 million people. About 77% of U.S. adults have had at least one vaccine dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CWA workers at AT&T can request an exemption for religious or medical reasons, and employees who are not vaccinated by Feb. 1 get a 60-day unpaid “reconsideration period” to change their minds, said union spokesperson Beth Allen.

The policy applies to employees who work in stores, customers’ homes and other worksites as well as people who are temporarily working from home. AT&T’s union employees include workers at cellphone stores, call centers and technicians.

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© 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.

Minimal COVID impact on many federal health premiums

When the COVID pandemic hit, many predicted that premiums in the giant federal employee health benefits program would skyrocket. But the average increase next year will be 2.4%, less than the 3.6% rise this year and the 4% uptick in 2020. It’s the largest employer plan in the country covering 8.2 million current and former feds and their families. The Office of Personnel Management and the health plans in the program apparently did a very good job holding down premiums during a time of millions of premature deaths and long, expensive periods in hospitals for survivors.

FEHBP (Federal Employees Health Benefits Program) policy holders will have between Nov. 8 and Dec. 13 to pick a new plan or reenroll in their current plan. Most people in the program have about 30 plan choices, some with many options in the same plan. Workers and retirees will have the choice of nationwide fee-for-service plans plus dozens of local health maintenance organizations, often with even lower premiums. Uncle Sam will pay about 70% of the total premium for most workers and retirees, and an even larger share for postal workers. Nobody can be turned down because of age, health or lifestyle. Anyhow who approaches the out-of-pocket maximum limit in his or her plan can switch to another plan.

The only disappointment in the new premiums is for S+1 (“self plus one”) plan enrollees.

Couples without children who hoped to save big bucks on their 2021 federal health plan got another dose of bad news yesterday when premiums for next year’s coverage were announced by OPM. In most cases, the self plus one enrollees will pay only slightly less for their coverage than people with large families. The self plus one concept was introduced a few years ago after a long fight to force the nation’s biggest health plan to offer an option between self-only and family coverage where the family could be 10 or more. At the time, experts warned the self plus one lobby that over time there would be little difference in premiums. So far they have been correct.

During the lengthy legislative campaign to get self plus one added as an option, backers said its costs to insurance carriers would be less than a family plan, and that premiums would be adjusted accordingly. But experts in the industry, from the plans themselves to officials at OPM and the consumers’ checkbook guide to health plans, predicted that many older couples — active and retired, without dependent children — would take the self plus one option. Over time that could — and in fact has — proven true. So you can still pay less as a self plus one couple than a family plan. But not the savings they had hoped.

During the health insurance and benefits open season, we’ll have a series of columns and Wednesday 10 a.m. radio shows featuring Walton Francis. They literally wrote the book on best-buys for feds, postal workers, retirees and survivors.

Francis says that tens of thousands of people are paying too much — $1,000 to $2,000 — because they’ve remained in health plans whose premiums have increased dramatically over the years. He says it’s possible to get similar coverage at much lower premiums by switching to either a basic option of the same plan, or a different plan. He’ll also explain how people can save tens of thousands in premiums — as part of a savings account — with some of the HD (high deductible) and HSA (health savings account) plans.

For a look at the 2022 premiums for non-postal fee-for-service plans, click here.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Adrian Dannhauser

When we breathe through our nose, we always inhale more air from one nostril than with the other one. This then changes every 15 minutes. Each nostril of the human nose is tuned to smell some odors better than others, and the specialization moves back and forth from one nostril to the other.

Source: Stanford University

Federal employees will pay nearly 4% more toward health premiums in 2022

Participants in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) will see more modest increases in their insurance costs for 2022 — at least compared to the last two years.

Federal employees and retirees, on average, will pay about 3.8% more toward their health premiums next year, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

OPM on Wednesday announced the annual premium rates for 2022 ahead of this year’s upcoming open season, which runs from Nov. 8 through Dec. 13. Participants in the FEHBP have an opportunity during that time to make changes to their health, dental and vision plans ahead of the upcoming benefit year, which begins Jan. 1.

“Quality health insurance has never been more important, and OPM is ensuring all eligible enrollees have the information they need to make informed decisions about their coverage,” Kiran Ahuja, the agency’s director, said Wednesday in a statement. “The global pandemic underscores the responsibility an employer has to provide their workforce with quality, affordable and dependable health care options.”

Once again, OPM said multiple factors impact the annual premium rates. The use of specialty drugs and the costs of responding to chronic illnesses, as well as advances in medical technology, drive up  health care costs.

The pandemic continues to have an impact. OPM bases 2022 premium rates on health care usage from the prior year, and because participants continued to defer doctors visits, elective surgeries and other procedures this year, overall usage of the health care market remains low compared to non-pandemic years.

Testing and treating COVID-19 patients cost the FEHBP $1 billion and represented 2% of the program’s claims in 2020, OPM said. The agency estimates these costs will eventually decline as more participants get vaccinated.

Overall, FEHBP premiums will go up an average of 2.4% next year, according to OPM. The government will contribute 1.9% more toward participants’ health premiums in 2022.

Specifically, non-postal FEHBP participants will pay an average of:

  • Self-only coverage: $3.17 more per biweekly pay period,
  • Self-plus-one coverage: $7.61 more per biweekly pay period,
  • Family coverage: $10.09 more per biweekly pay period.

Assuming non-postal federal employees receive a 2.7% pay raise as planned, OPM estimated the average worker will earn a biweekly salary of $3,599 next year. Health insurance, on average, will cost employees $171.74 for each pay period, or roughly 4.8% of their salaries, OPM said.

That’s slightly more than this year, where biweekly salaries averaged $3,504 for each pay period and employees paid $165.52 toward health insurance, or 4.7% of their salaries, OPM said.

Again, these are averages; individual health insurance plans will vary, meaning participants may pay more than the average premium increase, or they may pay less depending on the options they choose.

A formula set under law determines the shares the government and the enrollee pay toward FEHBP premiums each year. Government pays about 75% of a participant’s premium up to a certain cap. The cap equals 72% of the weighted average of the previous year’s premiums.

FEHBP premiums fluctuate annually, though they inevitably increase every year. Next year’s premium rate increases are less than what employees and retirees experienced in 2021, when they paid an average of 4.9% more for their health insurance.

Source: Office of Personnel Management data from 2015-present

The 2022 increases are also well below what federal employees saw in 2020, when they paid an average of 5.6% more for their health plans.

But the 2022 premium increases aren’t nearly as low as they were back in 2019, when participants paid 1.5% more toward their health insurance. It was the smallest overall rate increase since 1996 and the lowest premium hike for participants since 1995.

Still, OPM maintained the 2022 premium increases fall below projected health insurance costs from other large public and private sector employers. CalPERS, which purchases health insurance for California state government employees, has premiums that will rise an average of 4.8% in 2022.

CalPERS is the nation’s second largest public insurance purchaser after the federal government.

Federal employee organizations were mostly positive about Wednesday’s announcement.

“Clearly the administration did a better job holding down the employees’ share of premium costs in the FEHB program for 2022, and we commend that progress,” Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said in statement. “But we will encourage our members to prepare for price increases and use the upcoming open enrollment season to evaluate all of their options to decide which plan is best for themselves and their families.”

The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association acknowledged its members will continue to feel the pinch of ever-rising health care costs but called next year’s rates “modest” in comparison to increases in other systems.

“In a time of ever-increasing health care costs, I commend OPM for its hard work in keeping the FEHB average premium increase below that of the private market,” NARFE National President Ken Thomas said.

275 plan choices, more partial Medicare part B reimbursement options

Overall, federal employees and retirees have access to a total of 275 plan choices in 2022, one fewer than last year’s total. Not all participants, of course, will have access to all plan options, because some are only available to federal employees and retirees in certain geographic areas.

Of that total, participants have access to 18 fee-for-service plans, including 14 that are open to everyone nationwide. The remaining four fee-for-service plans are open to certain groups, such as the Foreign Service Benefit Plan and the Rural Carriers Benefit Plan.

Federal employees and retirees can also choose from 37 high deductible health plans, including two that are open nationwide, and 28 consumer driven health plans.

Carriers will offer 192 health maintenance organization (HMO) plans in 2022.

OPM added one new FEHBP carrier for 2022. HealthKeepers Inc. will offer a new high-deductible health plan, the agency said.

In addition, a few more plans are offering partial Medicare part B reimbursement options next year, OPM said.

Federal retirees can choose from 29 FEHBP plans that will offer some type of reimbursement in 2022, up from last year’s total of 25.

Participants should use OPM’s FEHBP plan comparison tool to review which choices offer a Medicare part B incentive.

Dental and vision premium increases remain minimal

Average premium rate increases under the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Plan are relatively minimal for 2022.

Premiums will rise for FEDVIP dental plans by 0.81% on average, while vision plans will go up by 0.95%, according to OPM.

Participants will have access to 23 dental plans, including 14 nationwide options, from a total of 12 carriers.

They can choose from 10 nationwide vision plans from five carriers in 2022, OPM said.

Participants can find more information about these FEDVIP plans in October or November ahead of open season on Benefeds.com.

In addition, federal employees must reenroll each year in the Federal Flexible Spending Account Program (FSAFEDS) if they want to set aside pre-tax dollars for their health or dependent care costs.

Special COVID-19 flexibilities allow employees who had a health or dependent care FSA this year can carry over all unused funds at the end of 2021 to use for the following year — if the participant reenrolls.

Carryover flexibilities will be more limited for 2023, which federal employees should consider when deciding how much to contribute in 2022, OPM warned.