Conversations on Senior Advocacy and Medicare with Bill Kadereit

NRLN’s Bill Kadereit on Medicare Open Enrollment, Social Security Cuts, and Senior Advocacy

Season eight of Villages Vitality Life opens with host Mike Roth interviewing Bill Kadereit, chairman and CEO of the National Retirees Legislative Network (NRLN) and chair of the American Retirees Education Foundation (AREF). Kadereit explains NRLN’s nationwide, nonpartisan advocacy focused on retirees’ income and healthcare security, including pensions, Social Security, Medicare, prescription drugs, and taxes. They stress why seniors must watch Medicare open enrollment as healthcare costs accelerate and Medicare Advantage plans are being canceled, creating “guaranteed issue rights” situations where affected members must request the “golden ticket” to switch coverage without medical underwriting. Kadereit warns Social Security reserves may be depleted by 2032, leading to an estimated 22% benefit cut, and says Medicare’s HI trust faces similar risk around 2035. Proposed fixes include removing the payroll tax cap and reducing large Medicare Advantage rebates to insurers. He directs listeners to NRLN.org and AREFpodcast.org.

Chapters 

00:00 - Season Eight Kickoff 

00:39 - Meet Bill Kadereit 02:06 - Why Enrollment Matters 

03:45 - Social Security Cliff 

04:53 - Join and Support NRLN 

06:41 - Action Alerts Made Easy 

07:34 - Medicare Funding and Golden Ticket

11:48 - Fixing the Funding Gap 

13:57 - Alzheimers Tip Break 

15:14 - Rebates and Drug Costs 

20:05 - More Info and Local Chapters 

21:46 - Wrap Up and Thanks 

Transcript

Dolores: 0:14

Welcome to Season eight of Village's Vitality Life, Senior's Life Unscripted. In this new season, we talk to leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live in and around The Villages. We also talk to people who have information vital to seniors. You will get perspectives of what is happening in and around The Villages, Florida. In addition, we will add more information for all seniors.

Mike Roth: 0:39

This is Mike Roth on Villages Vitality Life, a Senior life unscripted, and this is a totally unscripted episode. I'm here today with Bill Kadereit . He is the chairman of the board and CEO of National Retirees Legislative Network. And a 5 0 1 (C)3 AREF Bill, thanks for joining me.

Bill Kadereit: 1:07

Welcome. I'm very glad to be here.

Mike Roth ai: 1:08

Mike.

Mike Roth: 1:09

Bill, why don't you tell our listeners why they should be interested in your two organizations?

Bill Kadereit: 1:16

The NRLN is a, an advocate organization. We've been in business for 20 years. We represent seniors 65 and younger and 65 and over. We are very concerned about the future of their healthcare, their pensions, social security, Medicare, prescription drugs. You can put that all under two bands, really, income security and healthcare security. We also advocate for tax issues and things like that, that are effective. We have members in all over the country and all states. We have members in 75% of the congressional districts around the country. We're an umbrella organization. We have chapters in states and with small company retirees, and we have large corporations like at and t and others.

Mike Roth: 2:06

So Bill you have a chapter here in The Villages run by Jim Bodenner who's been on our podcast. Coming up very soon is an open enrollment period for Medicare. And then in January Advantage plans. Why is it important for seniors to pay attention to these open enrollment periods?

Bill Kadereit: 2:29

There are just a number of reasons, but I think the keys, especially now. Is a tremendous acceleration, in healthcare costs. And it's very quickly gonna flow downhill to just about everyone. In Medicare the rate of healthcare costs is growing. The rate of healthcare cost growth is almost twice the rate of new people turning age 65. It just cannot continue. We are really threatened by Medicare funding of Medicare and Social Security, and we're right in the middle of discussions with that in Washington with the legislators. We ask our members through action alerts to write their members of Congress, and we're very non-partisan. We're not concerned about whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. We're concerned about whether retirees are getting their just due, if you will. In Washington DC and today, there's just too much rhetoric, too many politicians after each other for the wrong reasons, and they're not paying attention to the important things like funding, Medicare, funding, social security, taking care of the things that not only we care about. Some of us may not because we're okay ourselves.

Mike Roth: 3:45

So Bill, what happens to social security in a couple of years when the actuaries say. Funds run out.

Bill Kadereit: 3:52

Yeah. In the last 20 years, what's happened is they have not funded Social Security adequately. Knowing that seniors were growing older and Mike and I, as we've put down a couple podcasts here today, know that by 2050 there will be 100 million people over age 65, almost one fourth of our population, and. Assets for the Social Security in reserves were 400% of a required amount, 10, 15 years ago. Today they're telling us by 2032, there will be no reserves, meaning that it'll be paid as you go. There will be a 22% cut in Social Security payments for everyone, and it'll be paid as you go, which means that. The premiums that come in are going out the back door every month.

Mike Roth: 4:42

So if you're a senior who's getting social security You're only gonna get a check for 78% of what you were supposed to get.

Bill Kadereit: 4:51

Yeah, that's true. Very true.

Mike Roth: 4:53

Now your organization is fighting for the rights of seniors. Let's tell our listeners how they can join the national organization. It's very simple.

Bill Kadereit: 5:04

Sure. Just go to NLRN.ORG and you can sign up to become a member. And

Mike Roth: 5:11

how much does it cost to become an annual member?

Bill Kadereit: 5:14

We don't have a due structure. We're supported entirely by contributions from all of our members.

Mike Roth: 5:21

So you pay what you can afford to pay?

Bill Kadereit: 5:22

That's exactly true.

Mike Roth: 5:23

So you can

Bill Kadereit: 5:24

pay, we have a recommended amount. We recommend $35, but. But we said, or whatever you can afford.

Mike Roth: 5:30

So someone can only afford $5. You'll take five. Good

Bill Kadereit: 5:32

enough. Yeah.

Mike Roth: 5:33

If they feel like they want to pay a hundred dollars, it'll take a hundred dollars.

Bill Kadereit: 5:37

Absolutely. And especially with all the we have to do coming up.

Mike Roth: 5:41

Okay. And you have lobbyists in Washington DC they gain access for you and your people to the congressmen and other lawmakers to. You get the agenda for seniors?

Bill Kadereit: 5:55

Yeah, we do this two ways. I have an Executive Director who was a, an attorney past member on the Hill, who's, her children are in great shape going to school, and so she's working for us doing a great job. Allison Parker is her name. We have a fellow Michael Calabrese, who was a Harvard graduate and Stanford law graduate. He's doing a lot of things for us on a, most of it, on a voluntary basis. In addition to that, we have all of our members across the country who participate through action alerts. We actually send them a definition of a particular problem we need to help with. We give them a letter that they can send automatically very easily by just pushing the button to their congressman. Their congressman.

Mike Roth: 6:41

So this is a really important point. Most of us seniors don't have the address of their congressman or senator or the president of the United States. If you, for that matter. And your site has an action alert system where you can take an action alert that was pre-written. Modify it the way you'd like and send it directly to your representatives.

Bill Kadereit: 7:03

In fact, when you enter your zip code up, pops the picture of your. Two senators and your representative.

Mike Roth: 7:10

So this is a tremendous convenience for us seniors to be able to communicate

Bill Kadereit: 7:16

Yeah.

Mike Roth: 7:17

Openly with our representatives. This is an important part of the democratic process.. If we don't, if we sit back and don't do anything. We're definitely gonna take that 22% cut in pay for seniors.

Bill Kadereit: 7:33

Yeah.

Mike Roth: 7:33

Social security.

Bill Kadereit: 7:34

Yeah.

Mike Roth: 7:35

Now you guys have looked at the state of the Medicare program. How long will it be before that program runs outta money?

Bill Kadereit: 7:44

The Healthcare Trust for insurance, what they call the HI trust, is scheduled similarly to run outta money about the same time. I think it's like 2035. Again, it's because it's been underfunded by the Federal Government. And the here, the thing is, those two programs are mandatory. They're not welfare programs. Everybody's paid into them. Sure there's some, there's fraud. One thing your guests might be interested in is that for all its fraud, for all that's been there, the overhead cost for Medicare is less than 3% of money paid out. We're paying Medicare Advantage plans. 16% of the total money paid to them is rebates,$90 billion a year, and we're getting nothing back. I'm afraid. What's happening is. You're gonna hear about GIR guaranteed issue rights. If you read, go on our podcast summary and look through that. For that podcast, you'll hear about guaranteed issue rights. These costs are going up so much that Medicare Advantage plans this year canceled Medicare Advantage plans that were not profitable to the extent that 2.6 million people had their plans canceled.

Mike Roth: 9:00

Yep. These people who have their plans canceled. They get a golden ticket if they want to take it, and then they can go to go back to traditional Medicare or they can go to a different advantage plan. As if there was age 65. Yeah. With no medical conditions. Yes. Regardless of their actual medical conditions.

Bill Kadereit: 9:20

That's if they get that golden ticket.

Mike Roth: 9:22

Yeah.

Bill Kadereit: 9:23

The, the issue that we're faced with here, folks, is that insurance companies are obligated by the federal statute to notify those whose plans are canceled or non-renewed. We won't go into de a lot of details of that, but if you don't get that golden ticket and it's happening. And it's happening across the

Mike Roth: 9:41

board. You have to ask for it.

Bill Kadereit: 9:41

You have to ask for it, but if you don't know it exists, you don't ask for it.

Mike Roth: 9:45

And then an insurance agent comes along and offers you a plan for two or 10 times the amount that you were paying.

Bill Kadereit: 9:51

Yeah.

Mike Roth: 9:52

And you don't have to buy it because you should have gotten the golden ticket.

Bill Kadereit: 9:55

A golden ticket simply means that no matter what your health condition is, the next guy, next company you go to, to get insurance from cannot refuse you. So if you have cancer or a heart problem, or you,

Mike Roth: 10:09

A, they can't refuse you, but B, they have to offer it as if you were 65.

Bill Kadereit: 10:14

Yeah. They have to get, they have to get, they cannot offer you more than they offer anyone else for that charge for anyone to anyone else for that plan. It's so important because if not, then you're un you can. Be uncovered because you would, might not be accepted by a successor company. So that, that's such a big issue. And we're gonna be in Washington this fall, and then again in January on that issue. We've been to CMS in Baltimore a lot.

Mike Roth: 10:38

CMS means

Bill Kadereit: 10:40

a center for Medicare and Medicaid services. Their headquarters are actually in Baltimore where their staff is at.

Mike Roth: 10:46

That's important. And, Bill and I have recorded a number of podcasts on these senior issues. And you're more than welcome to listen to 'em. The easiest way to listen to them is to go to AREF podcast dot. Org. And that will take you directly to the site where the podcast is. You can listen on your iPhone, you can listen on your Amazon speaker, you can listen on your pc your tablet. But these are very important podcasts that Bill and I have been recording. And we'll record some more on to give, seniors information about, what they need to be aware of and what's happening. Okay. And we're not going to spend a lot of time on the solutions today, but Bill wanted to give our listeners, it's just a, a brief idea of a couple of the solutions to the funding of Medicare and Social Security.

Bill Kadereit: 11:48

Yeah. Fir firstly, first off, we don't believe in the. taxation of wealth sharing and that situation where if you've earned equity over your lifetime and put your money at risk. Lots of, some people will tax that. We do not support that. But we have not examined that in depth because maybe we dismissed it up front, but maybe we should. But we, so far we haven't done that. There are a number of solutions proposed. Some people would have you work until you're 70 and then collect your eligibility, push, push your eligibility out beyond where it's at. Now, we do not support that. For two reasons. It simply stated, how are you gonna have ask people to wait two more years before they get what they have to live on?

Mike Roth: 12:30

That, that's really up to them. They look at the payouts.

Bill Kadereit: 12:34

That's

Mike Roth: 12:34

right. You retire at 62, you get much less than if you hang around the 70. That's

Bill Kadereit: 12:38

correct.

Mike Roth: 12:39

Okay. So that's not the issue. But there were issues about funding the amount of money Okay. That we paid in was. Stopped at a certain level of income. Today it's 184,500. Money earned after that is not taxed at all. What is the, your organization's

Bill Kadereit: 13:00

position? Yeah, absolutely. We support removing that cap, which means if you make $2 million a year, you're gonna pay just the same percentage as somebody else who's making $50,000 a year. And the result of that will be. That the, that will cover 70% of the funding required to restore Medicare. Social security. So that will last out through the year 2060. That's a, I think a viable solution . Combined with of course they're attacking Medicare fraud, but believe me, don't believe all this bologna about Medicare fraud is bigger than God because when they clean all that up, it's still gonna be in real trouble because the Congress kicked the ball, kicked the can down the road too far too many years. Okay. So yeah,

Mike Roth: 13:46

that's one solution to get 70, 75% of the way there,

Bill Kadereit: 13:50

right?

Mike Roth: 13:50

To fill the gap, Uhhuh. Okay. Bill let's take a break here and listen to an Alzheimer's tip from Dr. Craig Curtis.

Dr. Craig Curtis: 13:57

We now know that Alzheimer's disease starts about 20 years before the symptoms with the buildup of a toxic protein called amyloid. And so scientists have been on a quest to remove amyloid to see how it affects the disease. The medicine that was recently FDA approved to slow down symptoms in people with Alzheimer's disease memory problems. Works by removing this substance called amyloid out of the brain. And now we're attempting to use those medicines to actually remove amyloid before someone develops symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, such as memory loss and forgetfulness.

Mike Roth: 14:38

So that's in that 20 year period before the disease is obvious.

Dr. Craig Curtis: 14:43

That's right. Scientists now call it Alzheimer's Pathologic change versus Alzheimer's disease. We're saving the term Alzheimer's disease for when someone is actually experiencing symptoms due to Alzheimer's disease.

Warren: 14:58

With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate The Villages community on how to live a longer, healthier life. To learn more, visit his website, craigcurtismd.com, or call 3 5 2 5 0 0 5 2 5 2 to attend a free seminar.

Mike Roth: 15:14

I'm back with Bill Kadereit. Bill, What is another suggestion that your organization has for our legal representatives to bridge the rest of the gap?

Bill Kadereit: 15:24

Certainly they can look at the, where they're spending their money. They shouldn't be giving insurance companies a hundred billion dollars a year for rebates for nothing.

Mike Roth: 15:32

So if that stopped immediately,

Bill Kadereit: 15:34

uhhuh,

Mike Roth: 15:35

what percentage of the,

Bill Kadereit: 15:36

The shortfall would that? Let me think. Yeah, let me think. Oh, the last budget last year, the big budget, as they call it, a great budget resulted in a $3.4 trillion increase in the deficit. And that's fine. There are a lot of things in there that, that are very needed to pump the economy and run the country. But 1.2 trillion of the $3.4 trillion deficit increase Comes from those rebates to insurance companies. So you imagine that 40% so of the deficit increase.

Mike Roth: 16:08

So Bill, if we stop the rebates to insurance companies

Bill Kadereit: 16:12

Yeah.

Mike Roth: 16:12

So seniors on an advantage plan can get a free gym membership. Golf club membership or free over the counter drugs, What would that do to the deficit?

Bill Kadereit: 16:23

Oh

Mike Roth: 16:23

social security and Medicare,

Bill Kadereit: 16:25

the, the total amount of that.

Mike Roth: 16:27

Yeah.

Bill Kadereit: 16:27

It would certainly, if it's gonna increase the deficit by 1.2 trillion, that would be enough money to take care of the rest of the 40%. So we,

Mike Roth: 16:34

we would be,

Bill Kadereit: 16:35

But let me say something though. I think you, I think it's important for people to know we don't. We do not say that like extra benefits and so forth. For Medicare managed plans, we think they just need to be equalized. We think that they, that can be done within the budget so that nobody loses what they have, but that what we do is tell CMS to go after the cost. It's the cost out there. That is gnawing away at this country. My belief is that our children and our grandchildren, for certainly and our great-grandchildren, are gonna have one heck of a time producing any serviceable income after tax income to survive how much into their earnings. Insurance cost is gonna be today. It's almost pushing$2,000 a month in some areas of the country.

Mike Roth: 17:24

Is it the cost of the medical services themselves today or is it the giving away money, public money to private insurance companies?

Bill Kadereit: 17:35

It's both.

Mike Roth: 17:36

It's both.

Bill Kadereit: 17:36

No. It's

Mike Roth: 17:37

a, let's talk for a minute. A about a, a popular topic. Drugs. Okay. We see all these new drugs advertised by drug companies on television.

Bill Kadereit: 17:47

Yeah.

Mike Roth: 17:47

When I asked my doctor about it, he says, Mike, each one of those drugs gonna cost you 500 to a thousand dollars a month if you need it. And I say, gee, why don't we stop drug companies from advertising on Tv?

Bill Kadereit: 18:00

Oh.

Mike Roth: 18:01

We're giving a subsidy indirectly to television stations, radio stations. Okay. It doesn't make sense. So I think there's a lot of things that your organization could help.

Bill Kadereit: 18:11

Yeah.

Mike Roth: 18:11

Us as seniors and the country that make, that makes sense.

Bill Kadereit: 18:14

Yeah. It's a funny thing you said I know the, the chairman of, and I know, Mark Cuban has this, cost plus drug company. And I don't know how they can compete, but it does. By the way, I may emailed Mark Cuban. We've exchanged emails on the subject and I've met his CEO today has a, they have a factory in Dallas, which is where I live. I live in a suburb of Dallas.

Mike Roth: 18:37

Yeah, mark, mark Cuban won't remember me.

Bill Kadereit: 18:39

I, you're not gonna take him out to dinner, huh?

Mike Roth: 18:41

No.

Bill Kadereit: 18:42

So anyhow, what's happening here is I don't understand why, how are they gonna compete? Because the insurance companies. Our, the bait, of course, is the biggest bait out there to get its people into Medicare Advantage is to pay that premium on your prescription drug program. So if the government is paying premium rebates to insurance companies that are using it to pay the premium on drugs and paying zero on tier one drugs. How's the guy gonna get in there and compete? So I don't know how that's gonna work out. I just I don't know that about that much about the cost of drugs. There's a, there's an important issue though to think of if they are willing to spend $80 billion And get nothing back, but 16 to 20% in the whole, which is after 54 years, they have 54% market share, by the way. Then why aren't they willing to look at this and say, my God, over here, two years ago, the budget for funding development of cancer, biologic drugs for cancer was $7.9 billion. And they cried about setting the budget. So they fund, I think it was like 7.3 or $9 billion. To discover better ways to try to cure cancer. And they give $89 billion to insurance companies to try to privatize Medicare for no return. And it comes out of the taxpayer's pocket. I, that's just amazing. And I,

Mike Roth: 20:05

I think our listeners deserve to hear more, and again let's repeat where they can get more information. Bill from your website is No.

Bill Kadereit: 20:14

I don't, I didn't mention, we have another organization that I'm chairman of. It's AREF American Retirees Education Foundation. It is a 5 0 1(C)3, and we take donations, tax deductible donations there to fund our research. So as far as the action on what's going on with the re, what we do every day in the, you go to NRLN.org. You can sign up, you can get all of our action alerts. You can see the articles. You can go into the all of the, the podcasts we're putting together. You can pick one out and listen to it. And you can contact us and send us emails, ask us questions,

Mike Roth: 20:54

and if they, someone wants to get more information about the. Local chapter here in The Villages of your organization. How do they do that?

Bill Kadereit: 21:02

Jim Bodenner.

Mike Roth: 21:03

Jim Bodenner?

Bill Kadereit: 21:04

Yes. He's a local president here

Mike Roth: 21:06

and He is listed in the recreation news.

Bill Kadereit: 21:08

Yes.

Mike Roth: 21:09

Now, if they're in another part of the country and they want to get information about set, setting up a local chapter in their particular city, whether it's Omaha, Kansas City

Bill Kadereit: 21:19

Right.

Mike Roth: 21:20

Or even San Francisco. How do they do that?

Bill Kadereit: 21:22

They would go to the website and use our email service. You can email me if you can. My email address is there. We'll take it from a variety of inputs. You should know our staff is secured all over the country. My treasurer's in Detroit, my PR guys in Colorado and but so they're all, we're all over the country, but email will do it.

Mike Roth: 21:43

Yeah. And again, the website is. N-R-L-N.org

Nancy: 21:46

Remember, our next episode will be released

next Friday at 9: 21:48

00 AM. Should you wanna become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. This is a shout out for supporters, Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Duane Roemmich, Paul Sorgen, and Dr. Craig Curtis at K 2 in The Villages. We'll be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show. Contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. The way our show grows is with your help. Text your friends about this show. If you enjoyed listening, use the fan mail button on our homepage, VillagesVitality.Life to leave comments, be sure to include your name, email, and phone number. We thank everyone for listening. The content of the show is copyrighted by Roth Voice 2026, all rights reserved.