On this month’s episode our host Elizabeth Hopkins interviews Ed, a father whose daughter struggled with an eating disorder when she was a teenager over a decade ago. The family had to take out a second mortgage on their home in order to pay for life-saving treatment at a residential facility after their healthcare plan insurer refused to pay and they could obtain no help from the state agency tasked with regulating health insurance. A lot has changed since that time.  But more remains to be done because every day insurance companies still refuse to pay for residential treatment prescribed by doctors for patients suffering from eating disorders and other mental illnesses and these patients are either unable to obtain the treatment they need to recover or their families are forced to go into debt to pay what should be covered by their insurance. 

This month’s episode is dedicated to Karen Ferguson, founder of the Pension Rights Center. The Pension Rights Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people with their pension-related issues and advocating on their behalf. Our host, Elizabeth Hopkins, talks to Karen’s colleague, Norm Stein, about the Pension Rights Center and Karen’s legacy. To find out more about the Pension Rights Center and how you can help, click the link below. 

https://www.pensionrights.org/

On this special ERISA Watch episode, our host Elizabeth Hopkins examines the upcoming Supreme Court argument in the Hughes v. Northwestern University case, which will be held on Monday December 6, 2021. In Hughes, participants in a defined-contribution retirement plan allege the plan paid too much in fees for the investments offered, but the lower courts dismissed without even considering the merits of the case. 

Elizabeth speaks to Former Assistant Secretary of Labor, Phyllis Borzi, about the importance the of the investment fee issue and why it matters to anyone with a pension. They discuss how paying too much in fees over the course of a career can potentially cut retirement income for an individual by over one-third, and how management companies are profiting to the tune of many millions of dollars per year by skimming from retirement plans. 

Paying the vig in this instance might not implicate loan sharks and bookies, but with all of the risk on the plan participants and none of it on the employer and investment managers, the end result of the cuts being taken might not look all that different.