Many people are on a tight budget, including retired teachers.<\/p>\n
Recently, Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Teacher Retirement System of Texas to look into lowering health insurance premiums.<\/p>\n
Teaching is something you love, not something you just do for a paycheck.<\/p>\n
“Teachers are in it for the outcome, not the income,” Magic Valley Retired School Personnel Association President Sanjuanita Lopez-Handy said.<\/p>\n
Lopez-Handy spent 35 years teaching. Her years of dedication are paid out through the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.<\/p>\n
“As a retired educator, we still have bills to pay,” Lopez-Handy said.<\/p>\n
Besides her utilities and living expenses, Lopez-Handy said she even helps her daughter with her student loans and house payments.<\/p>\n
“Well it seems as we get older, we have to go see the doctor more often, we have to see more doctors, the eye doctor, your knee doctor,” Lopez-Handy said.<\/p>\n
Health insurance premiums also take a toll on her tight budget.<\/p>\n
This week, Governor Abbott directed the board of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas to lower health insurance costs on Medicare Advantage for retired teachers.<\/p>\n
Channel 5 News asked the governor’s office how the new directive to lower health insurance premiums relates to legislation he passed two years ago.<\/p>\n
According to the governor, last year, the program provided retirees reduced premiums from between $720 and $4,800 a year.<\/p>\n
That could mean relief to other retired public school employees, including Lopez-Handy herself.<\/p>\n
“That’s why a lot of teachers go back and they substitute or they take a part time job to make ends meet,” Lopez-Handy said.<\/p>\n
During their upcoming meeting in July, the Teacher Retirement System of Texas board will consider reducing premiums to the TRS-Care Medicare Advantage plan starting Jan. 1, 2027.<\/p>\n
Watch the video above for the full story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many people are on a tight budget, including retired teachers. Recently, Governor Greg Abbott ordered the Teacher Retirement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":623759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-623758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/623759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}