Now that health care reform (at least the bill) has been realized, how do clients feel about more government involvement with their defined contribution plans? According to the Investment Company Institute, households' have a preference for preserving retirement account features and flexibility.
As with the surveys from a year earlier, households were asked about policy changes involving DC plan saving. A majority of households disagreed with proposals to remove or reduce tax incentives for retirement savings. Nearly nine in 10 households disagreed with not allowing individuals to make investment decisions in their DC accounts, and eight in 10 disagreed with replacing all retirement accounts with a government bond. In 2009, the survey was expanded to gather households' views on policy regarding the retirees' management or annuitization of account balances.
- Ninety-six percent of all U.S. households indicated they did not want the government to take away retirees' ability to make decisions about retirement assets and income.
- Seven in 10 U.S. households indicated they opposed having the government require retirees to trade a portion of their retirement plan accounts for a fair contract that promises to pay income for life, whether from the government or an insurance company. Opposition to such a proposal was more than 80 percent among older, higher-income groups, for whom annuitization is a more salient issue.
