The United Federation of Teachers worked closely with NYC Mayor Eric Adams to persuade municipal union workers to give up Medicare and accept enrollment in a for-profit Medicare Advantage plan.
Many municipal retirees opposed the changeover. Unhappy retired municipal workers formed an organization which they called the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees. They concluded that the quality of their healthcare would decline if they accepted enrollment in a Medicare Advantage plan. MA might not accept their preferred doctors, and they would run the risk of being denied permission for treatment that their own doctor recommended. The retirees fought the city and their unions to block the switch to MA. They won in the state courts, and they won control of the retirees’ sector of the UFT.
Following the retirees’ victory in the courts and in the union elections, Michael Mulgrew announced that he would no longer support MA. Now the retirees are asking for the active help of the UFT.
Arthur Goldstein, retired high school teacher, wrote the following open letter to Michael Mulgrew, president of the UFT.
He wrote:
Dear President Mulgrew:
As you know, we’ve been fighting for years to preserve our health care. The recent Retired Teacher Chapter election showed a healthy majority of our members want to continue with our current premium and co-pay free Medicare/Medigap plan. We were all encouraged that you dropped your support of the Medicare Advantage plan into which the city wishes to place us.
That said, we are still in trouble. As you know, Mayor Adams is fighting for the MA program, and appealing our recent victories to the NY State Court of Appeals. As you are no doubt aware, they are the highest court in the state and have the power to overturn our thus-far unbroken string of victories.
There are two ways we can prevail. One would be to win in court. Since UFT now opposes this plan, we need an Amicus brief from UFT. That’s quite important. If you oppose this plan, you need to demonstrate this to the court, and show that UFT is a force to be reckoned with. Mayor Eric Adams is, in fact, our contractual adversary, and we need to treat him as such.
This, of course, is not our only court battle. Mayor Adams also wants us to pay co-pays with our Medigap plan. That is unprecedented, and co-pays have a way of increasing endlessly. We need to halt this now.
I heard you say at a meeting that co-pays were intended only as a temporary stopgap measure. Given your statements about how the city is interested only in saving money at our expense, I think it’s fair to assume we can no longer trust the city to make any such measures temporary. Therefore, UFT needs to file an Amicus brief in our battle against additional expenses for retirees on fixed incomes. As you know, many of our retired brothers and sisters in DC37 are just getting by as is.
In 2016, MLC effectively suppressed the HIP rate, via so-called HIP/HMO Preferred. This resulted in additional costs for 40% of enrolled city employees. Obviously, it’s an error to tie this to the base rate, because I’m sure you want our members, and all city workers, compensated at the highest rate possible. This needs to be corrected, and we need your support to do so. I’m sure you don’t want retired UFT paraprofessionals paying co-pays, higher deductibles, and/or premiums. We will need UFT support in the upcoming Campion case so as to preclude this.
Our other avenue of protection is via the legislature. As you know, there are bills, set to be reintroduced, both in the city and state protecting Medicare and Medigap for retirees. Union support could make the key difference, particularly in the state. I’m told the state bill would have passed but for “union opposition.” I don’t know who in the union opposes this, but the recent RTC election shows our retirees overwhelmingly support it. In fact, I’d argue the overwhelming majority of city retirees do as well.
This brings me to my final point. Since unions, for whatever reason, have not been in the habit of protecting our current health care, the group NYC Retirees was formed. This group, entirely on donations, has been protecting us in court for years. The recent election demonstrates that UFT retirees support the goals of this group.
Therefore, it’s high time the UFT, perhaps through COPE, made a sizable donation. This is clearly the will of our chapter, and it’s time we honored that will with something more than words.
Sincerely,
Arthur Goldstein, Vice Chair RTC
