Chicago Sun-Times: All posts by Michael W. Frerichs

Some Republicans want to ban IVF: Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs

2023-11-21T05:30:00-06:00

Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs with his wife, Erica (left); daughter, Ella; and twin sons, Theo and Max (right).

Provided

Like many people, my wife and I like to take stock of the things we are thankful for at Thanksgiving. This year, the top of our list is easy: We are thankful for the birth of our sons, Theo and Max. We don’t take their existence for granted.

Allow us to explain. Erica suffers from endometriosis, a condition that makes it difficult to conceive a child naturally. But in vitro fertilization made it possible for us to conceive, and we are very thankful for the doctors and nurses who helped us through that process.

Erica gave birth in June, and Theo had to fight for his life, spending nearly eight weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital. We are incredibly thankful for the doctors and nurses who helped pull Theo through a life-threatening scare.

We also are thankful the new speaker of the U.S. House, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, does not make the laws governing reproductive freedom in Illinois. If he did, our twin sons wouldn’t be here.

According to recent news reports, Johnson supports banning in vitro fertilization. He is a co-sponsor of the Life at Conception Act, a nationwide abortion ban that also would affect embryos created for IVF. In Illinois, some right-wing groups want to ban IVF. Because of these zealots, in January our governor and state lawmakers enacted a law protecting people’s decisions to use IVF to have children.

Opinion bug

Opinion

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision last year, right-wing zealots in Tennessee immediately questioned the legality of IVF. In a conversation caught on tape, Stephen Billy, the vice president of state affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told lawmakers they just needed to wait a little bit before going after fertility procedures.

The end of Roe triggered a flood of “personhood” bills in Republican states that define a fertilized egg or embryo as a legal human entity. In the process of IVF, the doctor collected eggs from Erica during four different rounds. After fertilization, we had two embryos. Only one was viable. According to these “personhood” laws, if these unviable collections of cells are considered people, doctors or their patients will be considered to have committed a crime by disposing of them.

Erica knew that giving birth was going to be a struggle. Post-Dobbs, she didn’t know it might be considered a crime.

If anyone thinks such laws will not affect many people, remember about one in five women in the U.S. with no prior births have trouble conceiving. This includes people like Erica who live with genetic conditions and women who chose to delay childbearing while pursuing careers.

We cringe when we hear some of these people shout, “Thanks for choosing life!” They get it right in calling it a choice. In our case, it was a choice that required medical help, not legislative prohibition. They want to deny families like ours the medical help they need.

We are very fortunate. Although the process of IVF took several years and was physically and mentally exhausting, that one embryo split and became Theo and Max. Many families dealing with infertility are not so lucky.

We have been told that conceiving a baby is a miracle. There, we agree. We have two sons despite only transferring one embryo. This miracle could only happen because we live in a state that gives women reproductive freedom. This is why government should not make health care decisions for women.

We are thankful to live in a state that allowed us the choice.

Michael Frerichs is the Illinois treasurer.

The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.

The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Chicago Sun-Times or any of its affiliates.

Illinois can help small businesses avoid retirement savings crisis

2023-10-28T04:50:00-05:00

Small businesses want to offer retirement plans for their employees, but often can’t afford it. Illinois’ Secure Choice program is an option.

Getty/iStockphoto

There’s a looming retirement savings crisis across the country, and small businesses, especially those owned by people of color, are bearing the brunt of it.

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed Illinois small businesses to their limits and highlighted the importance of saving. But even before the pandemic, smaller businesses were less likely to offer a workplace retirement plan, often because they needed more administrative or financial resources to do so.

Through the Illinois Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program, our state is taking a critical step to remove retirement savings challenges and ensure more small business employees can retire with dignity.

Small employers now have support in creating a pathway to a successful financial future for their employees and mitigating some of the savings insecurities. By providing employees with access to a workplace retirement program, smaller firms will be able to compete with larger companies for talent, and their employees will have a better opportunity to save for their golden years.

Opinion bug

Opinion

Since its launch in 2018, Illinois Secure Choice has created an affordable way for businesses to help their employees prepare for retirement. Our state has recently expanded the program to include smaller businesses.

State law now requires every employer that had five or more employees in the previous year and has been in business for at least two years to offer a workplace retirement savings option, whether that’s through a qualified plan, such as a 401(k), or through Illinois Secure Choice.

Employers contacted by the program this year have until Nov. 1 to either start the Illinois Secure Choice onboarding process or request an exemption if they already offer a qualified retirement plan.

We know small employers in Illinois are looking for ways to support their workforce amid a changing economic environment. One way to ensure employees of small businesses feel supported is to facilitate access to Illinois Secure Choice.

Small Business Majority research has found that a majority (68%) of small business owners support automatically enrolling employees who lack access to an employer-sponsored plan into a state-administered retirement program and agree these programs will help to close the state’s vast retirement savings gap.

Across active state-facilitated retirement programs in states such as Oregon, California, Colorado and Virginia, more than 750,000 workers have amassed over $990 million in retirement savings.

Smaller firms, particularly the smallest businesses, are often overlooked by retirement services companies and don’t have the support to offer qualified retirement plans as a benefit to their employees. Secure Choice solves this problem, by serving as an easy-to-use option that does not charge fees to employers, allowing an owner to focus on running their business.

Research has found that only one-third of small employers are able to offer a retirement plan, despite many wanting to do so. Illinois Secure Choice can help level the playing field between small businesses and their larger counterparts, so small businesses can compete for the best employees and have peace of mind they are doing what’s best for their workers.

Nearly two-thirds of Illinois small business owners are concerned their employees are unprepared and will not have enough money to cover their basic living expenses when they retire. Overall, inflation and fluctuating labor markets have influenced American confidence in saving for retirement. Most families, even those approaching retirement, have little or no retirement savings.

With the Nov. 1 deadline quickly approaching, we encourage small business owners to take advantage of this program to help improve their employees’ economic future.

Tasha Brown is Midwest director for small business majority and directs outreach, education and policy efforts.

Michael W. Frerichs started his third term as Illinois state treasurer in January 2023.

Congress should help disabled by passing ABLE Age Adjustment Act

2022-12-20T12:17:57.275-06:00

The wheelchair racers start the Chicago Marathon, on Oct. 9.

Congress has the chance to deliver the gift of greater financial security to millions of Americans with disabilities by approving the ABLE Age Adjustment Act before it adjourns for 2022.

Sending this common sense measure to President Joe Biden would build on the important work of Congress in 2014 when it passed the Stephen Beck Jr. Achieving a Better Life Experience Act, often referred to as ABLE. The legislation helped people with disabilities who depend on the Social Security administration’s Supplemental Security Income to avoid chronic financial insecurity.

Before ABLE, people with more than $2,000 in assets would lose this means-tested benefit. After President Barack Obama signed the act into law, people with disabilities and their families could contribute money to an ABLE account and preserve federal benefits. ABLE accounts are savings and investment tools that allow people with disabilities to save for qualified disability expenses — assistive technology, housing, transportation, employment training, health care education, and the like — that improve health, independence and quality of life. Earnings and withdrawals are tax-free when used for qualified expenses.

But the law came with a catch: Only those whose disability began before they turned 26 are eligible to own an ABLE account, leaving millions ineligible to save. Among them: individuals who incurred spinal cord or brain injuries, or who developed severe mental illness after age 26.

Opinion bug

Opinion

The ABLE Age Adjustment Act (S. 331/H.R. 1219) would raise the age of disability onset to 46, a crucial change that will incentivize work. The age limit of 26, in fact, was only added at the 11th hour to the original bill to address opponents’ concerns about its budgetary impact. These concerns never materialized, data from the Congressional Budget Office and the Social Security Administration show. We could afford ABLE without an age cap in 2014, and we can afford ABLE with the more reasonable cap of 46 years today.

Beyond the equity issue, approving the measure will enhance the long-term affordability of ABLE programs. Currently, 46 states and Washington, D.C. administer ABLE programs that have more than 126,000 accounts with assets totaling approximately $1.1 billion. According to the National Disability Institute, about 6 million more people, including approximately 1 million veterans, will be eligible to open an ABLE account if the legislation passes.

In Illinois, we estimate an additional 250,000 would gain access to ABLE.

One of the people who would benefit is Shelley Jaspering of Ames, Iowa. At 28 — two years past the age limit — she had an accident that resulted in a permanent disability of quadriplegia. Raising the age limit would allow her to open an ABLE account. “If I could save for the future, for repairs to a van, for repairs to my house, for repairs to my wheelchair, I wouldn’t have to live in fear,” Jaspering, now 45, told the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging in March.

My office launched the Illinois ABLE plan in 2017, and Illinois leads the National ABLE Alliance, a bipartisan group of 17 states and D.C. that represents more than a quarter of ABLE-eligible individuals.

We continue to build on that success. Illinois recently led a successful effort to lower account fees by about 25% for current participants. Passage of the ABLE Age Adjustment Act not only will expand availability of ABLE accounts to more individuals with disabilities, it also will help support ABLE programs for all eligible individuals. More participants will lead to greater economies of scale, enhanced stability and lower costs.

I commend Sen. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania and Senate co-sponsors, including Illinois Sens. Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, for their efforts to push the legislation over the finish line. I also applaud the House efforts of sponsoring Rep. Tony Cardenas of California and Illinois Reps. Danny Davis, Brad Schneider, Mike Quigley, Jan Schakowsky, Bobby Rush and Raja Krishnamoorthi.

I urge Congress to pass the ABLE Age Adjustment Act by the end of the year and ensure greater financial security for millions of Americans with disabilities. Doing so is a gift that will last a lifetime — and benefit all of us.

Michael W. Frerichs is Illinois state treasurer.

The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.

The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Chicago Sun-Times or any of its affiliates.