Kaytlynn Noggle Federal Life Insurance Equity Act

Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the ``Kaytlynn Noggle Federal Life Insurance Equity Act,'' named in honor of the daughter of constituents of mine, Elizabeth and Larry Noggle; and to encourage all of my colleagues to support this bill.

I would like to read the e-mail sent to me by Mr. Noggle as I think it sums up the need for this legislation far better than I could.

``Representative Burton, recently my wife, Elizabeth, and I had a stillborn daughter, Kaytlynn Grace on December 19, 2009.

We are both Federal employees with the Defense Department and when we looked to see if the Federal Group Life Insurance covered stillborn children, we were told it did not.

As you are probably aware, Indiana law requires any child 20 weeks gestation or more to be buried or cremated as if they were a regular person who lived and died, the cost of which ran our family over $2,000 in funeral expenses.

As the insurance didn't cover it, this was a large unexpected expense. Since Indiana law requires burial, we had hoped our insurance would cover at least the funeral expenses as we carried the family coverage on our policy. We discovered that for military service members, their life insurance covers stillborn children up to $10,000.

While neither Elizabeth nor I expect to benefit from any changes, we request that the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance program be modified to include stillborns for all Federal employees, at least equivalent to the Servicemembers group Life Insurance Program.

We aren't looking to profit from Kaytlynn's death. We are hoping to bring about a change to help other families in this situation. Thank you Larry Noggle.''

Madam Speaker, Public Law 110-389, the ``Veterans'' Benefits Improvement Act of 2008'' in addition to enhancing other veterans and military benefits, amended the definition of dependent under the Family Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance program to include stillborn children. And coverage for stillborn children has been part of the program since November 18, 2009.

The ``Veterans Benefits Improvement Act'' did not, however, amend the definition of dependent under the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance program. The Kaytlynn Noggle Federal Life Insurance Equity Act simply corrects this imbalance and brings the two programs into parity.

Although I do not have an official CBO score on the bill, the costs to the Federal Government should be negligible for several reasons.

First, the cost of Basic insurance under the Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance program is shared between the employee and the Government; with the employee paying \2/3\ of the total cost while the Government pays \1/3\. The cost of the Optional Coverage under the program--in other words coverage for spouses and children (including coverage for stillborn children)--is paid 100 percent by the employee.

Second, stillbirths are fortunately rare. According to the latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control, each year in the United States approximately 25,000 babies are stillborn--roughly 1 percent of all births. Consequently, the probability is that the Federal Employees Group Life Insurance program would pay out relatively few claims under the stillborn provision.

To paraphrase Mr. Noggle, no one is going to make a profit from this provision. But it will hopefully give Federal families some peace of mind that they won't be made destitute by the tragic event of a stillborn baby.

I would encourage all of my colleagues to co-sponsor this critically important legislation.