Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., came out strongly in favor of confirming nominee Lisa Gomez as Assistant Secretary for the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) at the Department of Labor (DOL).
Murray, Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee led a hearing urging her colleagues to support the nomination.
In her opening remarks, Murray underscored EBSA’s role in protecting families’ benefits and financial security and noted the agency’s service as a “lifeline” to workers who receive their health care coverage through their employer.
“EBSA has the massive task of overseeing more than 700,000 retirement plans, two million health plans, and 880,000 other welfare benefit plans,” she noted. “That’s tens of trillions in assets overall, the management of which has huge consequences for the everyday lives and futures of millions of families across the country.”
She also said the agency has a critical role to play in addressing threats from unscrupulous financial advisors that may put their own interests above the financial security of those who turn to them for help, or the growing array of cybersecurity threats.
“And while Congress passed legislation to address the multiemployer pension crisis—which threatened to cut the hard-earned benefits of millions of workers who did nothing wrong, EBSA faces the challenge of helping retirement plan participants recover the benefits they are entitled to,” she added.
Turning to health care, she concluded that EBSA enforces critical protections for people who get their health care coverage through their job, such as protections for people with pre-existing conditions, “protections enacted in the ACA, including access to free preventive services; and mental health parity and addiction equity law, which ensures health plans cover those benefits at the same level they would cover other medical care.”
Gomez will replace Ali Khawar, who was acting assistant secretary for the EBSA and will remain principal deputy assistant secretary.
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
