15. Employee Retirement Plans and Postretirement Benefits We maintain retirement plans for the majority of our employees. Depending on the location and benefit program, we provide either defined benefit pension or defined contribution pension plans to our employees. Each plan is managed locally and in accordance with respective local laws and regulations. We have defined benefit pension plans in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Japan. All active retirement plans for Corporate employees are defined contribution plans. Additionally, we offer OPEB plans to a portion of our Canadian, U.S., Corporate and Central European employees; these plans are not funded. BRI and BDL maintain defined benefit, defined contribution and postretirement benefit plans as well; however, those plans are excluded from this disclosure as BRI and BDL are equity method investments and not consolidated. The U.S. participates in and makes contributions to multi-employer pension plans. Contributions to multi-employer pension plans were $7.9 million for both 2019 and 2018, and $7.7 million in 2017. Additionally, the U.S. postretirement health plan qualifies for the federal subsidy under the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (“the Act”) because the prescription drug benefits provided under the Company's postretirement health plan for Medicare eligible retirees generally require lower premiums from covered retirees and have lower co- payments and deductibles than the benefits provided in Medicare Part D and, accordingly, are actuarially equivalent to or better than the benefits provided under the Act. The benefits paid, including prescription drugs, were $37.6 million, $37.1 million and $36.6 million in 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively. Subsidies of $0.1 million for 2019, and $0.3 million for both 2018 and 2017, were received. Net Periodic Pension and OPEB Cost (Benefit) Defined Benefit and OPEB Plans (1) During the fourth quarter of 2019, we utilized plan assets to purchase buy-out annuity contracts for a portion of our Canadian pension plans and recognized a pension settlement charge of $29.8 million. For the years ended December 31, 2019 December 31, 2018 December 31, 2017 Pension OPEB Consolidated Pension OPEB Consolidated Pension OPEB Consolidated (In millions) Service cost: Service cost $ 4.0 $ 7.0 $ 11.0 $ 5.5 $ 9.3 $ 14.8 $ 7.7 $ 10.9 $ 18.6 Other pension and postretirement costs (benefits), net: Interest cost 161.9 25.5 187.4 161.8 25.8 187.6 205.6 30.6 236.2 Expected return on plan assets, net of expenses (217.3 ) 0.5 (216.8 ) (232.8 ) 0.5 (232.3 ) (287.9 ) 0.4 (287.5 ) Amortization of prior service cost (benefit) 1.1 (0.7) 0.4 0.7 (0.2) 0.5 0.5 — 0.5 Amortization of net actuarial loss (gain) 10.4 (14.1 ) (3.7 ) 7.6 (1.7 ) 5.9 12.2 — 12.2 Curtailment, settlement or special termination benefit loss (gain) (1) 30.5 — 30.5 0.8 0.1 0.9 (5.4) (2.9) (8.3) Expected participant contributions (0.7 ) — (0.7 ) (0.8 ) — (0.8 ) (0.5 ) — (0.5 ) Total other pension and postretirement cost (benefits), net $ (14.1) $ 11.2 $ (2.9) $ (62.7) $ 24.5 $ (38.2) $ (75.5) $ 28.1 $ (47.4) Net periodic pension and OPEB cost (benefit) $ (10.1) $ 18.2 $ 8.1 $ (57.2) $ 33.8 $ (23.4) $ (67.8) $ 39.0 $ (28.8) 118