The City of New York wants to cut the cost of health benefits to retirees. The unions support the cuts. This is hard to understand. Many retirees worked for decades at low salaries, assuaged by the guaranteed benefits after retirement. The United Federation of Teachers has taken a leading role in pushing members, active and retired, to switch from Medicare to a for-profit Medicare Advantage plan. Some retirees have fought back, knowing that not all doctors are part of a MA network and that they will have to get pre-approval for major care.
This article was written by veteran New York City Arthur Goldstein and published in the New York Daily News and reposted on Fred Klonsky’s blog.
I have a personal stake in this issue. I am on Medicare. My secondary is my wife’s union healthcare plan. She worked for 35 years as a public school teacher, principal, and administrator in New York City. In 2021 I had open heart surgery. Neither my referring cardiologist nor my cardiac surgeon are part of the city’s MA plan. The total bill for the surgery and a month in the hospital was over $800,000. Medicare paid almost everything and probably negotiated a lower price. The secondary picked up whatever Medicare didn’t pay. The surgery and rehab and six weeks of at-home care cost me $300. Seniors like me who face serious health issues stand to lose a lot if the city sand the union force them off Medicare and into a for-profit Medicare Advantage plan.
Arthur Goldstein wrote:
There was a joke in the movie “Sleeper” about how UFT President Albert Shanker started World War III. Our current union president, Michael Mulgrew, won’t be starting any wars. In fact, Mulgrew is now battling to have the city pay less toward our health care. What’s next? A strike for more work and less pay?
Union can be a powerful thing. It empowers working people. It raises pay for union workers, which tends to raise pay for non-union workers as well. Union enables weekends, child labor laws and workplace safety regulations. There are reasons why wealthy corporations fight us tooth and nail. Without union, they can hire Americans at minimum-wage with no benefits.
Mulgrew wants to move all city retirees backward from Medicare to a distinctly inferior Advantage plan. Far fewer doctors take Advantage plans. If Mulgrew gets his way, retirees will have a NY-based plan like we working teachers have. Retirees, unlike working teachers, often live elsewhere. If they do, they’d better not get sick.
As a working teacher, I’m good in New York, but outside this area I’ll find few to no doctors that take my plan. In fact, while trying to persuade me that Advantage would not be so bad, a union official told me he lived in Jersey and had a hard time finding doctors who accepted our plan.
Then there are the pre-approvals. When you’re over 65 and having a health crisis, you probably don’t want CVS/Aetna deciding between your health and their profit. Mulgrew says there will be a quick appeal process. But what if you lose? Is dying quickly now a benefit?
It’s tough being union when your leaders actively campaign for management. You’d think they’d campaign for improved health care at a lower cost to us. Instead, they’ve gotten the City Council to hold hearings on changing the law so the city could contribute less.
This all stems from a 2018 Municipal Labor Committee deal. Rather than insist the city pay us cost of living raises, the MLC geniuses agreed to fund them ourselves, via health care cuts. On Oct. 12, 2018, Mulgrew told the UFT Delegate Assembly his deal would result in no additional copays. Time has proven that untrue. He also promised no significant costs to union membership. Yet any couple wanting to keep traditional Medicare, under Mulgrew’s plan, will pay almost $5,000 a year.
How can we trust our leaders when they clearly don’t know what they’re doing? Are they simply incompetent, or outright lying?
Rank and file had no voice in the MLC deal that was done behind closed doors. It seems the backroom dealing continues. Weeks ago, the Council was “lukewarm” about revising 12-126, which sets a minimum the city must meet for our health care. Now, they’ve done a rather sudden and spectacular turnaround.
What has changed? I can’t help but suspect my union leadership, along with others, quietly reached out. Maybe those union contributions would slow for Council members who voted to uphold health care contributions. After all, it isn’t us, but rather leadership holding union purse strings. And will Council members get funding from Mayor Adams for their pet community projects if they don’t vote his way?
Mulgrew wrote us an email saying we would have to pay $1,200 a year if we didn’t change the law and screw our retired brothers and sisters. This is a classic zero-sum game. America has never achieved universal health care because that’s how it’s presented. If we give those people health care, it will damage yours. Frequently based on racism, Americans accept these ideas and thus reject proposals that would improve things for all of us.
A fundamental notion of union is that a rising tide raises all boats. Rather than embrace that notion, Mulgrew threatened us. If we didn’t support diminished health care for retirees, our own health care would be diminished. By pitting one union faction against another, Mulgrew and other union leaders took a fundamentally anti-union position.
Union ought not to be in the business of abbreviating health care for its members. Union ought to be in the business of not only expanding our care, but also ensuring the rest of our community enjoys the same benefits we have. That’s why it’s sorely disappointing that Mulgrew opposes the New York Health Act, which would provide health care for all New Yorkers. Rather than work out differences with its sponsors, UFT takes shortcuts. In doing so, we hurt the most vulnerable of my union brothers and sisters.
First they came for the retirees. And if you don’t think they’re coming for current employees next, I have a lovely bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.
Because it is an untapped source of profit for well-place persons who can manipulate the situation politically with likely success. Wonder if this has a certain billionaire’s fingerprints all over the source documents.
GregB
Up Front Medicare Advantage Plans should not exist. It is an assault on the Medicare system. Providing inferior care. My Union and Other Building Trades Unions have members who work directly for City agencies , who will be affected by this.
That said there is nothing nefarious about this. City Officials and Unions are not walking away with cash payoffs. The City as part of its negotiating process is looking to cut costs on a rather expensive program in exchange for payroll
But after near 60 years of Republican Control of the NY State Senate, 2018 saw a wave of progressives elected and they took over the leadership in the State Senate (giving Cuomo Heart Burn ) one of the very first programs they proposed was a Medicare for all plan for NYS .
Take a guess who opposed that plan. And I am not talking about the Usual cast of Characters on the Right or the Medical Establishment .
The give-backs started in earnest with Randi Weingarten. In fact Weingarten has publicly supported Mulgrew in his quest to reduce retiree benefits via healthcare switch to Medicare Advantage. Incredibly the UFT does not allow posts about healthcare comparing traditional Medicare to Medicare Advantage on its official retiree site!!! I was banned from the site along with many others for attempting to post such a comparison.
Diane, please ask Randi how it is that she’s authorizing Mulgrew to spend money on this congestion pricing fight on behalf of Staten Island, yet she’s ok with saving money on the backs of retirees. It actually says in the filing that NYC employees are the fiber of the city. That means that the retirees were the fiber of NYC. Yeah, I know, great publicity for the UFT and Ms. Weingarten. That’s the Randi Weingarten who stated at a Delegate assembly while still UFT president that she’s just trying to be Talmudic. Disgrace. Shonda in other words.
https://nypost.com/2024/01/06/metro/uft-paying-costs-of-staten-island-congestion-pricing-fight/
I’ve volunteered to be a delegate for an alternative slate to Tom Murphy/Mulgrew, as have former colleagues of mine. If we can get 300, we’re in and Murphys out. Think we’re around mid 200s at this point. A FB page representing all the city union retirees has just posted the information, now…which is a big step.
It requires attendance of a once a month meeting (virtual or in person) through the school year.
At this point I’m so disillusioned that I don’t care who’s responsible. All that matters is mobilizing a strong base to take back our voices. I don’t think Mulgrew or the city expected this kind of resistance, but many of us come from a time of protest. We won’t lay down.
If you or anyone you know is an NYCDOE retiree with interest in effecting change; please consider volunteering to be a delegate. Here’s the link:
Click to access Recruitment_Letter.pdf
Thank you – I’ve already signed up to run. We know they need to go. Imagine Weingarten and Mulgrew taking away health benefits promised to all NYC employees over decades. The benefits that we worked for and gave our lifeblood for. Diane knows that they are responsible for this disgrace, yet she will not go up against Weingarten. The kids of the 60’s will not take this without a fight. I’m with you and the rest of the 250,000 of us and have been since April 2021. And in October 2018, Joe Wohl, formerly of the Unity caucus lied to me when I questioned him about the agreement that included Medicare Advantage. He told me that none of what was in the 2018 MOA would happen. Filth, not a union caucus.
Etoile,
I have written affidavits on behalf of the NYC Retirees Organization and contributed to the cost of the lawsuit. I am directly affected. I’m on my spouse’s health plan; my spouse is a NYC public service retiree.
Diane, Thank you for your reply. I’m not questioning your support for the lawsuits and that you are directly affected by this depraved lack of humanity on the part of Mulgrew. We know that Randi is the wizard behind Mulgrew’s actions. Are you calling Randi out on her role in this? Let’s get your financially very comfortable friend Randi Weingarten to speak to the Medicare Advantage plan and the ongoing attempts to take away health benefits promised to NYC employees over decades.
Diane is not other people’s keeper.
I am curious as to whether or not NPE has taken money from Randi Weingarten. And if so, is it worth it to have her support? I am not judging good or bad, but want to understand the situation better and with specificity.
Although I don’t agree with some of Randi’s actions, I don’t see her as being of the same stripes as Mulgrew on this particular issue. I haven’t read or heard any endorsement of the forced Medicare changes coming out of her office, as of yet. She, basically, hasn’t attacked us while he has and continues to do so.
While I would love to see her step in on our behalf; I’m not surprised that she hasn’t. If she did, it would mean committing the AFT into fighting national/state government and insurance industry alliances, which is a very big deal. Not just NYC. It would involve all of the AFT’s constituents. That’s an action that needs to be well thought out, planned, and coordinated.
I figure that she’s allowing this to play out as a local issue. Whether she’s happy to see us winning the fight is anyone’s guess. But I have no proof that she’s pulling Mulgrew’s strings, Etoile. Do you have some documentation to substantiate that claim or at least point in that direction? My objective is information, btw. Knowledge is power. Not trying to put you on the spot.
Hmmm, how vigilant have you been on Randi’s actions throughout her career? Are you a current or former NYC teacher? If yes, know that Randi Weingarten arranged to lower the TRS percentage from I believe it was 8.5% to 7.25%. That’s a very big difference in return over years but it was one of those back room deals that uninformed teachers snapped up to get their two extra vacation days after Labor Day back. Clearly, you haven’t been paying attention to Weingarten’s maneuvers over the decades. She has wanted to be secretary of education for so very long. Ingratiating herself to the Democrats beholden to their donors might just be her idea of the ticket to her dream post. There’s so much more to be said on this topic. Diane has way more knowledge of the real Weingarten than she reveals. Weingarten wields so much power, if she wanted to she could stop the vile Medicare Advantage situation in a nano second.
Retired after 27 years service which I started at age 40 as a second career. The TDA fixed return giveaway debacle was disgusting. I advised my colleagues to vote “No” (as I did with Mulgrew’s and DiBlasio’s quickee) but, as we know…
As I said: I’m not a no questions asked cheerleader for Randi. Gates as keynote speaker? Please…
But I don’t agree with you on her ability to just shut down the City/Mulgrew’s Medicare plan. That’s one of the problems that I think people in positions of power often face: deciding if, when, where, and how to use your clout and figuring out what the consequences will be, should they decide to proceed. No doubt Randi has her own personal agenda…but everything she says has an effect on a very large constituency. And the people/corporations that she’s dealing with hold a lot of power.
Wall St. and Big Insurance are working to privatize Medicare. Both Medicare Advantage, which is draining the funding for Medicare, and the newest nefarious attempt to privatize Medicare from the inside, ACO Reach, are set up to undermine traditional Medicare. The only way to introduce profit into senior health care is to deny service by installing a corporate approval into the process.
When people retire, they make their plans according to what they believed was a legitimate health care contract at the time of retirement. Changing the agreement, when seniors have no say in the process and are dependent on a certain level of health care expectation and support, is wrong. As people age they are more likely to need expensive interventions or surgeries to survive, and putting corporations in charge of those decisions is like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. The AFT is complicit in selling out its membership.
We need to inundate our representatives and CMS with our concerns about the privatization of Medicare, a highly effective lower cost alternative to privatization. Medicare was designed to serve the needs of seniors that could no longer fairly complete in the glorious “marketplace.” We need the federal government to know they are toying with health, well-being and financial security of our most vulnerable citizens, and we reject it. Medicare must not become a gigantic “pay to play or pay for so-called success” scheme. We need to cause a fuss and stop the corporatization of Medicare. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/12/12/1141926550/medicare-advantage-plans-overcharged-taxpayers-dodged-auditors
Right on the money! Republicans want to kill Medicare and have been trying to do it for years. Democrats want to keep Medicare but don’t want to bother with trying to adequately fund or manage it so they wish to “farm it out” to Hedge Fund Companies to manage….which are reliant on SIB’s. Next step is for pensions to be managed by the same Hedge Fund management companies. Public to Private is the Capitalistic way of the good old USofA.
cx: UFT instead of AFT. An important point of consideration is that Bernie Sanders is leading the Health and Human Services Committee in the Senate this term. Corporations are very worried because Bernie is not for sale. Our concerns also are more likely to be taken seriously by any members of the Progressive Caucus, which now has 102 voting members in The House.
It always seems like it comes down to 2 choices. Wall Street or Big Corporations . Wall St over Main St (Dems) or Robber Barons over Main St (Repubs). Here’s hoping that Bernie can make a difference for middle Americans.
So true, and the Biden administration actually expanded the Trumpian plan (which Trump was able to execute due to a provision in Obama’s ACA) to privatize what’s left of Medicare. Biden’s administration said the goal is to have everyone in traditional Medicare assigned to an ACO REACH network WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT by 2030.
These networks are run by the likes of private equity groups, who will then be allowed to keep up to 40 percent of their annual Medicare payments for profits and “overhead.”
What do you think will happen to patient care?
For an excellent history and summary of this, read “Architects of Medicare Privatization: Congress, Biden and the CMS.”
Also, pnhp.org has been extensively covering and trying to end this dangerous program. I’ve signed and shared their petition.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/12/30/architects-of-medicare-privatization-congress-biden-and-the-cms/
Many of the same health care companies that are ripping off the public trust under Medicare Advantage have been granted contracts under ACO Reach, the latest scheme to fleece the working class. If the public does not push back, corporations and politicians will destroy Medicare, a highly efficient and effective way to deliver service to seniors. No corporate gate keepers are needed as Medicare explains in detail what it will and will not cover.
Good comments raising good questions. I grew up in a union family in Michigan, spent over 20 years in union work and related–for NEA, SEIU, AFSCME, and for the state administration, interfacing with five Ohio unions. I met with leaders like Al Shanker, and others less well known, and saw the tremendous value of unions–and the dangers that can engulf them. One conclusion (among others): Union leaders are people, and subject to the same shortcomings and pressures as everyone else. Organizational “guardrails” are necessary to keep union leaders serving the members, not themselves–just as they are in our national and state political life. In other words, “checks and balances” are needed to keep leaders serving members. Not having the space here for an essay on the subject, let me point to the one area I think most illustrative and to the point: Term limits. The USA decided decades ago to limit our Presidents to 8 years–2 terms. The NEA has had term limits on Presidents for decades, as well, but the AFT has not. It becomes extremely difficult to keep a union serving its members out in the field, when the folks at the top aren’t much affected by what goes on “in the trenches,” as they say. And it’s not just AFT; NEA local unions in big cities often don’t have term limits of local presidents, who wield lots of power, but can’t be challenged. Bear in mind that as bad as national media–like Fox & CNN–might be in covering political stories, they almost never cover union stories. And within the unions–almost all of them–there’s a union press, and other means of communication, run by the leadership, with no competition. I could go on, but AFT & NEA and their affiliates could use and should have term limits for top officers and ways for membership to express themselves. Without that, AFT will continue to be one-dimensional, and NEA will be ineffective in dealing with the complex of issues facing public education today and the people on the front lines–teachers, who have to make schools successful for kids.
They are threatening to do the same here in New Haven, CT. When you bargained in, supposedly, good faith, years ago to provide this coverage instead of paying better salaries, you need to adhere to it. Retired teachers can’t vacate a contract, so why should the city be able to do so? This would be a hardship for certain.
George,
That’s an important point. Many teachers agreed to lower wages because of secure benefits. MA is a broken promise.
Just curious, but has anyone checked Mulgrew’s offshore bank accunts lately? It sounds like he is getting kickbacks from somewhere, and I doubt he wants a visible money trail. The Bahama would be a good place to start looking…
“First they came for the retirees.”
But right before that they came for the unvaccinated teachers.
Teachers should never be unvaccinated. Those who are not vaccinated endanger their students and colleagues.
First, COVID came for the unvaccinated teachers
An unvaccinated person is too crazy to be entrusted with students.
“About 70 of California’s 1,000-plus school districts provide some type of lifetime health benefits to retired employees.”
When I retired in 2005 at 60, the school district in California where I worked for thirty years offered a limited health care option that would end when I was eligible for Medicare a few years later, but if I wanted it I had to pay about $1,500 a month out of my retirement that was 40% less than I was earning before I retired.
I couldn’t afford that, so I retired without any healthcare.
Fortunately for me, a few months later, I learned that I was eligible for health care through the VA, since I’d served in the US Marines and fought in Vietnam back in the 1960s.
Affordable healthcare in the United States is a luxury, and many healthcare plans come with copayments and limits on how much they will spend to keep someone alive. Even the health care the school district I taught in when I was teaching for thirty years had one of those spending limits, and then we were on our own, to die ASAP, and stop being a burden.
That sums up the cutthroat-capitalist United States in a peanut shell.
And I have never had dental health care covered. That has always been out of pocket, sometimes several thousand annually.
Unless the US has a healthcare plan like Canada, the UK and most EU nations do, most Americans will, at some time, live without healthcare unless their willing to go bankrupt to stay alive (if they have anything to lose like the equity in a house) and once the banks have their houses and everything else they own, they’ll end up without healthcare anyway.
If that happens to me, a need for healthcare to stay alive and I don’t have healthcare, I have a simple bail-out plan so my heirs get something from my life. I’m already closing in on 78, so I’ve lived most of my life and my plan is called a bullet to the brain, ending the suffering someone goes through when they have a serious health challenge and no healthcare.
Again, that sums up the cutthroat-capitalist United States in a peanut shell.
If Mulgrew and the UFT succeeds and abandons retirees, it is only a matter of time before NYSUT follows. Every NYS public employee better take notice.
I agree. I am a retired NYS teacher. I currently have traditional Medicare, and I pay for a supplement that covers my husband and myself. The cost just increased by $100 at the start of the year. I am now paying $700 each month for this insurance, but, as a group plan, it is far better that trying to compete in the so-called free market at our age. I’m worried. “When New York City sneezes, New York State catches the cold.”
Isn’t this part of the $1 billion in “healthcare savings” that the union agreed to in 2014 as part of the new contract that included payment of retroactive salary increases?
It is not. They achieved those savings. As the article states, it is part of a 2018 agreement MLC made without rank and file. It was incorporated under Appendix B of the 2018 contract, which was not shared with us until after it was ratified.
This is new to me, Arthur. I’d been under the same impression as Joel:
“Isn’t this part of the $1 billion in “healthcare savings” that the union agreed to in 2014 as part of the new contract that included payment of retroactive salary increases?”
Mulgrew has used the depletion of the Stabilization Fund as a big reason for the change to a manger care system.
Was the 2016 decision piggy backing off of the 2014 contract?
Same impression as Flerp is what I meant.
This applied to a coalition of NYC Public Service Unions not just teachers .
In Illinois, we all pay into a fund for retiree’s health care, but then are forced to go on a Medicare $camVantage plan.
I wonder if someone with the Illinois Retired Teachers’ Associations would please consider a lawsuit allowing us to choose between Medicare Part 2/Supplement subsidy up to the cost of what we are paying the private profiteers?
Why are we forced to pay for a service we do not want, when an excellent option – Traditional Medicare – is available?
Teachers including retirees are going to have to organize and become more involved and perhaps more militant. Wall St. and Big Insurance are bribing their way into Medicare and pension funds. Wall St. refers to teacher pension funds “dumb money” because they have no respect for teachers, and they are finding it easy to get those at top to sell out those of us at the bottom. If teachers do nothing, they will be easy targets for the profiteers and frauds.
Canada invested millions of teacher pension funds in Crypto….ooops!
Couldn’t have said it better.
Years of working long hours (most people have no idea how much additional prep time and personal money we spent at home), now that I am old I have to worry about losing my doctors and praying that necessary procedures will be approved.
Union leadership will not get my vote next time.
Marsha Beyda, retiree
BEWARE — be very aware — and read page 61 in your official 2022 “Medicare and You” booklet from Medicare, taking careful note of the fact that this page makes clear that so-called “Medicare Advantage” supplement plans are PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES and are NOT Medicare.
With private insurance company Medicare Advantage plans YOU ARE MORE LIKELY TO HAVE YOUR MEDICAL CLAIMS DENIED, according to investigations by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Inspector General. There’s no “advantage” for you in having claims denied.
In addition, while genuine Medicare allows you to visit doctors whom you choose, “Medicare Advantage” plans typically limit the doctors you can see to those who are in their plan’s “network”. There’s no “advantage” for you in that, either.
And, “Medicare Advantage” plans that offer a “$0 premium” typically make up for that by having high deductibles — because they are private for-profit insurance companies and they have to make their profit somehow…so you can end up paying high out-of-pocket deductibles for doctor and hospital care.
A better choice for those on Medicare is to get a Medicare Supplemental plan — also called “Medigap” plans — because they pay for the “gap”, the difference between what doctors and hospitals charge and what Medicare pays. If you add up the out-of-pocket deductibles you pay with a “Medicare Advantage” supplement plan, you could find that even after accounting for the premium you pay for a “Medigap” supplemental plan, you are saving money by going with a Medigap plan that allows you to keep your genuine Medicare coverage.
Learn that there’s a HUGE DIFFERENCE between a “supplement” plan and a “supplemental” plan — those two tiny letters “al” at the end are incredibly important to you; here’s why:
So, why do private Medicare Advantage plans even exist? Here’s why: Congress authorized co-called “Medicare advantage” plans as a favor to the private insurance industry in return for campaign contributions — and the key purpose of “advantage” plans was and is to allow insurance companies to bleed money out of Medicare and to gradually privatize it and do away with Medicare.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-04-12/medicare-fraud-whistleblowers-accuse-insurers-of-faking-claims-to-make-billions?fbclid=IwAR06vx6yohhP8KcSr5NSXJUFJkS3Uxb7_Br8rKNe3mcX6–mU7geoar7c94
Calling Medicare Advantage a supplement is misleading because it is actually supplanting or replacing Medicare with private service.
Stop your whining in NY, you reap what you sow. Upfront ; I am a retired NY Private Sector Union Member who has a free Part B supplemental plan provided by my retirement plan, which picks up anything not covered by Medicare. It sucks!!!!! Why? Because it is dependent on unions being there to negotiate these benefits in current contracts. In spite of the hype , Union Density in the Labor Force is still declining. Which translates to a loss of bargaining and Political Power in real Terms. A lot of hoopla about Chris Smalls on Staten Island getting less than 25% of the workforce to bother with mailing in a ballot for the Union. Wake me when that turns that into a contract with Amazon. ” You mean the workers you now represent ,75% whom did not vote for the Union or bother to mail in a ballot are going to join you on the picket line.” (A variation of a quote that can be found on the History of the AFT pages from 1960 ).
So in short Union healthcare plans are great if you can keep them. The longest strike in America just ended after 5 years with the Union walking away from a loosing battle at the NLRB. A battle against Spectrum Cable TV. .An undisclosed amount of back payments were made into the Pension and Hospitalization plan in exchange for the settlement . In a ruse to break the Union, Spectrum/ Charter Communications the 17th largest corporation in the US withheld payments to the Pension and Hospitalization Fund forcing the Union to walkout in defense of these benefits.After 2 years without a new contract . These 1800 workers lost their Jobs, Health Insurance and Pension security. Some had crossed the line , many were absorbed as 3rd year apprentices into the Construction division of this IBEW local. Giving these workers the opportunity to advance. Unfortunately this only exacerbated an unemployment situation in a Union with upwards of 15% unemployment due to the Covid induced (work from home) Collapse of the NYC (NYC is not alone) Commercial real Estate Market. While High Rise Non Union Residential construction sites flourish all over the City as the neo liberal assault on Government services privatizes affordable housing programs using public tax dollars in the form of tax abatement’s. You don’t want expenditures to show , simple abatement’s don’t.
So yes Tim Ryan !!! stop the horse —- about those great Union Healthcare plans mine or the Casino Workers in Nevada where you made that statement in the debates . Mine is among the best in the Country and it is under assault . It Cost the signatories with the Union $22 an hour, for every hour worked, to cover the health plan of this 16 k strong Union. The average member of my union thinks that dollar amount is about $ 5 an hour.
Some of the members of my Union are directly employed by the City of NY and are subject to the same cuts affecting the UFT .
In 2018 progressives finally won control of the NYS legislature. For 6 decades before that Republicans were in control of the State Senate with an absolute Majority or since Cuomo in 2010 with a coalition of 6 right wing Democrats who caucused with them . The first thing they put on the table was a proposal for a NYS Single Payer Medicare for all Healthcare plan . The proposal died because my Private Sector and Public Sector Unions like the UFT refused to back it . At the same time as in a private conversation I was told by a Business Rep of my Union in a position to know,
“our plan is unsustainable with the current level of benefits”.
You think there is sympathy for highly paid Teachers and Construction Workers in NYC . ( I don’t think they are overpaid ) . The election of 4 new right wing Republicans in down state NY should be a wake up call. Accomplished with many votes from Union members themselves . Staten Island , NYC’s only Right Wing County has the highest Union density in the Country 24%, Teachers ,Fireman Cops Sanitation and Construction Workers .
Workers and Unions are our own worst enemy .
https://inthesetimes.com/article/labor-unions-new-york-medicare-for-all-bernie-sanders
As usual edit : losing.
Joel, I’ve always been curious why your comments consistently insert a space before periods and commas. What’s going on there?
Typing classes in HS before the time of computers and/or electric typewriters. “Secretarial” typing was taught as well as stenography and shorthand. I still insert 2 spaces after a (.).
No, I’m talking about spaces before the periods (or commas, or exclamation points, etc).
Not always roughly half the time. But if you haven’t observed poor editing skills. If I change a word in a comment I do not automatically bother to move the punctuation. I would be curious to know why it bothers you enough to comment on it, as it seldom alters the meaning of the sentence. While never altering the meaning of the comment. On second thought I am not that curious.
Plus a cursor that bounces around inserting itself into the middle of words and sentences forcing me to do excessive editing. A tech solution for that would be appreciated. . . .
It doesn’t bother me, it has just always intrigued me. It continues to intrigue me because I don’t really understand your explanation. The intrigue continues!
After a decade of Bloomberg non-negotiations; our UFT union was starving for the same raises that the other unions had received.
Enter Bill DiBlasio as the new mayor. He and Mulgrew quickly agreed upon a contract. Our chapter leader smelled a rat at the time, citing future health care concessions along with a few other points…but the rank and file bit and the contract was ratified.
Mulgrew and DiBlasio were hailed as heroes. The teachers not only received raises, but we also received timed retroactive paychecks that matched the raises the other city employees had received during Bloomberg’s tenure.
But we completely missed the massive elephant in the room.
In order to pay for those raises and retroactive paychecks, the unions gave the City a billion dollars from our Health Stabilization Fund:
“ The Stabilization Fund was created in 1984 in order to equalize costs between the city’s two health insurance options at the time, GHI and HIP—each of which are offered to city workers at no cost. 2 In addition, the Stabilization Fund ensured that the rates paid by the city were predictable for budgeting purposes.”
This is the fund that ALL the city unions pay into. So the teachers paid for their raises with the hard earned money of all City union members.
Now Mulgrew is using the diminishment of this fund along with rising health care costs as a rationale for the switch to a less expensive, privately managed Medicare package which will affect ALL city retirees.
He does not mention the billion dollars that was taken from the fund to pay for our own raises. In fact he denies that it even happened. But it’s on public record. Look at the bottom of the first page of the Executive Summary:
Click to access report-5-2015.pdf
Mulgrew is trying to sow distrust between the rank and file and the retirees. He didn’t expect us to hire top notch lawyers to fight this changeover…and we won in court according to the law. So now they’re trying to CHANGE the law. Cute.
Except these change affected many different Unions. The list includes some Private Sector Unions (ie Trade Unions) as well who represent workers employed directly by the City. So it is not just the UFT.
The City and these Unions did give workers the option to purchase into the current system for about $185 dollars a month. Which probably represents only a fraction of the cost of the supplemental plan.
Perhaps (enhanced) ‘Medicare for All’ is not looking so bad after all.
Hi Joel. It was $192+ for each household member currently enrolled in the union plan. This was how we won the lawsuit. They were forcing us to pay extra if we opted out of the proposed blanket Advantage Plus plan. We’re not supposed to pay “extra” for our medical coverage. The Administration Code that they’re trying to change is the one that our win is based on.
$185 per month is not bad for a Medigap program. Do workers have the option of staying in Medicare while paying for the Medigap? If so, older retirees would be wise to pay the difference if it means keeping actual Medicare.
That is the offer: $192+ for each household member who’s on the current plan. I know elderly couples on fixed incomes who can’t afford that difference. I know it will make my life more difficult, as well.
Though, in today’s world of unaffordable healthcare, it might be a good deal; we retired with the plan that’s in place, now. We shouldn’t be required to pay extra for it. We should be grandfathered out of the change.
gitapik
I don’t want to see anybody pay more for healthcare or lose it. It should be a basic right paid for out of tax dollars. When you dial 911 for police or operator for the fire department nobody asks for insurance. Yet that same fire department sends an ambulance and a $900 dollar bill goes to the insurance company if you have one. And that is before you see a doctor and 10s of thousands in hospital bills.
Unions flourish when they are seen as a force for Social Progress. When they are seen as a narrow self interest group they are easily crushed. Our Unions (and members) fought a Medicare for All plan for NY in 2018 and Nationally in 2020.
At the same time same time as our plans have come under assault from anti Union Employers and the escalating costs of Medical care.
“ Our Unions (and members) fought a Medicare for All plan for NY in 2018 and Nationally in 2020.
At the same time same time as our plans have come under assault from anti Union Employers and the escalating costs of Medical care”
Pretty demoralizing, isn’t it?
Gotta keep fighting.
I will say , though, that what you said is sobering, considering the realities of our for profit health care system, retiredteacher.
Some comments are blaming the Republicans for this push for privatizing the Medicare system.
It’s a bipartisan effort that began in earnest at the direction of Bill Clinton. Think it was our Dam Poet who said the Republicans hated him because he out Republicaned them all.
It’s gained traction in a big way since then.
Medicare advantage plans are almost as old as Medicare. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act under Ronald Reagan in 1982 created them. You would be correct to say that under constant Republican pressure to reduce deficits only when Democrats held the Presidency. Republicans closing down the Government that they did not believe in, repeatedly for near 1/2 a century. Democratic Presidents were more than willing to fold rather than take the good fight to the American people.
One can hardly forget the second Obama vs Romney debate where O. said “on Medicare we agree” . Of course that came after Sequestration ,shutdowns and threats to not raise the debt ceiling. Not that I am convinced that Obama was not on board .
Trump proved Cheney was right. “Deficits do not matter”. except when a Democrat is in office.
Interesting and thanks for the info. What with the likes of Gaetz controlling the House, there’s a good possibility that the government might actually get shut down, come this summer.
A friend of mine is watching the proceedings at City Hall. He just told me that the city Council members are dubious, but that mayor Adams is pulling a trump card:
https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/10/31/23433597/medicare-advantage-eric-adams-retiree-health-care-ultimatum