CalPERS Distributes $15 Million in Medicare Retiree Drug Subsidies

SACRAMENTO, Calif., July 26 -- The California Public Employees Retirement System issued the following news release:

The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) announced today that it distributed more than $15 million in Medicare Retiree Subsidy (RDS) funds to more than 800 of its contracting local public agency employers in June. This is CalPERS third subsidy disbursement to its contracting agency employers since the Medicare Part D Program was established in January 2006. CalPERS has distributed a total of $45.2 million in local public agency RDS funds over the past three years.

Medicare Part D is the voluntary federal outpatient prescription drug benefit that was added to the federal Medicare program in 2006. CalPERS participates in the Medicare Part D RDS Program for all Medicare health plans except Kaiser Permanente Senior Advantage. (CalPERS does provide the Kaiser Medicare Advantage Prescription Drug Plan for Kaiser Senior Advantage enrollees.)

"These reimbursements will help cities and counties as they struggle to maintain health care benefits for retirees and their beneficiaries," said Kimberly Malm, CalPERS Interim Assistant Executive Officer of Health Benefits. "We hope this will help employers offset some of the costs they've incurred providing high quality prescription drug coverage."

The State Controller's Office mailed the reimbursement checks in late May. Contracting agencies will receive RDS funds based on a formula that considers each individual agency's contribution toward Medicare health premiums in 2008. The State of California received $36 million in Medicare Part D subsidies this year.

CalPERS is the nation's largest public pension fund with more than $203 billion in market assets. It provides retirement benefits to more than 1.6 million State, school and local public employees, retirees and their families, and health benefits to nearly 1.3 million members. For more on CalPERS, visit www.calpers.ca.gov.

TNS 23SQ -JF78100727-2929371 StaffFurigay