NYC Retiree Health Plan Update - The Mulgrewcare sellout continues, Amazon joins the feeding frenzy to kill Medicare

• Anthem Withdraws from MulgrewCare -- Boo Hoo -  ednotes.

Michael and Tom's email yesterday sum(s) up what needs to be done.....continue the process with the City to find and win a well-crafted premium free Medicare Advantage plan in what has become an increasingly expensive healthcare environment.... Vinny Gaglione, UFT Retiree chapter

A Retiree Advocate member responds:

Hi Vinny,

I couldn't disagree with you more. Michael and Tom's email does not sum up what needs to be done, it merely sums up what they want to be done. The way forward is not through Medicare Advantage, but by exploring other options. Besides, the city already offers two premium-free Medicare Advantage plans: Aetna Medicare Plan (PPO) and Empire MediBlue PPO. As a matter of fact, several knowledgeable people I spoke with over the past year feel that the existing Aetna plan is superior to the proposed Alliance MAPP plan (and it has always been offered without coercive penalties for not opting into it). We need a restart, not a rebrand. And retirees need to be part of the process, not part of the rubber stamp.

Cheers, 

NY Focus: Health Insurers Just Killed The Medicare Plan City Retirees Railed Against

 

Mellins S. Health Insurers Just Killed The Medicare Plan City Retirees Railed Against. NY Focus. July 19 2022. https://www.nysfocus.com/2022/07/19/city-retirees-medicare-insurers-pull-out/

Let's understand exactly what this means. The UFT is trying to find a good Medicare Adv Plan (MAP) - a profit-making, high admin cost, high exec salary, high ad cost plan to replace a lower cost, non-profit, low admin cost current traditional Medicare plan. 

In other words - let's insert a middleman between us and the government plan. -- MulgrewCare indeed.

For a great discussion on the negative impact of middlemen - watch this video on Majority Report -- Emma at one point brings up private health insurance as raising the costs of healthcare -- not make it cheaper as Vinny claims.

https://youtu.be/sq1TRdd1WfY

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A retiree wrote -- If you read this article carefully it spells big trouble on the horizon for working staff and retirees. The UFT clearly will support a monthly premium for our insurance.

Here is Vinny's full email to a Retiree health care committee - dominated by Unity Caucus and fundamentally, non-functioning.

From UFT: Good Evening Retirees,

A lot of press articles came out today. Two had some errors in the reporting that are being corrected. Press can be found in the NY Focus, Craine's ad NY Daily News.

You will read that this organization was having a meeting with the Mayor. That is true. What's NOT true is that we were going to discuss the possibility of supporting a MAP plan. That was NEVER on the agenda.

The City of NY may have to re-bid out the plan, but we WOULD NEVER, EVER agree to be forced into a MAPP. EVER.

We advocate for Traditional Medicare and Supplemental AND CHOICE. MAP plans have existed in the City offering since about 1993. They were always a CHOICE, and they should REMAIN THAT WAY!

Please allow for the errors in reporting to be corrected and share this message with anyone that thinks otherwise of our message! You have heard it DIRECTLY FROM US THAT IS NOT WHAT WE STAND FOR.

On Tue, Jul 19, 2022 at 2:39 PM VINCENT GAGLIONE <uftrtchealthchair@gmail.com> wrote:

DEAR COMMITTEE MEMBERS,

So the operating principle for the committee, ALWAYS SUBJECT TO CHANGE BECAUSE NOTHING IN THIS DAMNED WORLD IS ROUTINE ANYMORE, is that we convene on Zoom monthly on the third Thursday of the month at 4:00 PM.

Thanks for reminding me that I forgot to note the time on the link that I sent out.

Some have asked for an explanation of the effects of the Alliance pullout from Medicare Advantage Plus. Michael and Tom's email yesterday sum up what needs to be done.....continue the process with the City to find and win a well-crafted premium free Medicare Advantage plan in what has become an increasingly expensive healthcare environment.

Health Insurers Just Killed The Medicare Plan City Retirees Railed Against With the plan tied up in court, Anthem and Empire BlueCross pulled out of a controversial deal to switch retired city workers to privately run health insurance. Sam Mellins / July 19, 2022 New York City’s years-long effort to shift retired city workers to a cost-cutting health care plan was dealt a major blow Monday when the insurer in charge of running the plan announced that it is withdrawing from the deal. The plan — which the city and municipal unions hoped would save $600 million a year in health care costs — would have been run by the Retiree Health Alliance, a partnership between health insurance companies Anthem and Empire BlueCross BlueShield. The effort, part of a bigger cost-savings package negotiated with labor unions, involved switching retired city employees from their current coverage, which is traditional federal government-run Medicare plus supplemental insurance paid for by the city and the unions, to a privatized Medicare Advantage program.  The plan’s implementation has been on hold since March, when a state Supreme Court ruling  barred the city from charging retirees for their current health coverage. Before the ruling, retirees who opted out of the switch would have been required to pay $191 per month to maintain their current coverage. The city had appealed the ruling, and that process was ongoing. The Alliance had requested that the city provide them with an exact start date for the plan by July 15. Likely because of the ongoing lawsuit, the city was not able to do so. In a statement, Harry Nespoli, chair of the Municipal Labor Committee, a coalition of city unions that negotiated the cost-savings deal, said that the Alliance had demanded an unconditional guarantee that the program would start on January 1, 2023, no matter what happened in court. When the city and unions declined to make this guarantee, the Alliance withdrew from the plan, Nespoli said. On Monday, a notice on the Alliance’s website read: “Given the level of uncertainty at this time, we informed the city that Empire BlueCross BlueShield is not able to participate in offering the NYC Medicare Advantage Plus Plan.”  Asked for comment, Mayor Eric Adams spokesperson Jonah Allon said: “The City and the Municipal Labor Committee continue to believe that a customized Medicare Advantage Plan provides the retirees, the City and its taxpayers with the best opportunity for high quality healthcare. We remain committed to moving forward with the program and are exploring alternative options.”  The Adams administration is considering whether to continue with its appeal of the court ruling. Union leaders said Tuesday that they still intend to pursue a switch to a Medicare Advantage plan. “We still believe in a Medicare Advantage Plus plan and we’ll just figure out how to get that done,” Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers and vice-chair of the Municipal Labor Committee, told New York Focus. Waiting Room  The news of the withdrawal was a win for the groups that have been organizing against the change. “This is yet another victory for the retirees, ensuring that for now, they are guaranteed their health care,” said Steve Cohen, the lawyer representing the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees, which sued in September to block the switch. Retirees — who for months have warned that the new plan could cover fewer treatments and lead to higher costs — also celebrated the development. “I think Anthem is wise to back away from this hot mess, and I think that the city has wasted enough of my money and other taxpayers’ money on legal action,” said Marcia Biederman, a retired Brooklyn public school teacher. “We have been promised good, reliable healthcare in our retirement, and Medicare Advantage would break that promise.” Mulgrew said that any future Medicare Advantage plan will be premium-free for retirees — as their current insurance is, and as the Alliance’s Medicare Advantage plan would have been. The next step in the process is likely to be reaching out to other insurers that demonstrated interest in providing a Medicare Advantage plan. “There were multiple people who bid on it. So I’m assuming what we’ll do is contact those folks,” Mulgrew said.  The two finalists for the original contract were the Alliance and Aetna, according to court documents. Aetna, which unsuccessfully sued the city after it was not awarded the original Medicare Advantage contract, did not respond to questions on whether it is still interested. The Organization of Public Service Retirees might support a future Medicare Advantage plan, Cohen said, noting that the group was planning to mention the possibility to Mayor Eric Adams at a meeting scheduled for Monday that was canceled. “We were going to suggest that he goes back and put out a new bid for a better and different Medicare Advantage plan that really works,” he said.  But the organization’s support would depend on whether they feel that the program meets retirees’ needs, the plan being opt-in, rather than opt-out, and with the option of allowing retirees to maintain their current coverage free of charge, he insisted. “Is it going to be the same pig with lipstick? Or are you going to actually try to come up with something that is as good as, or close to, the Senior Care plan?” Cohen said, referring to retirees’ current health insurance plan. The United Federation of Teachers is committed to keeping Senior Care open as an option for retirees, Mulgrew said. If the city’s appeal is successful, Mulgrew said the unions might support requiring retirees to start paying a monthly premium for Senior Care, which the lower court’s ruling currently bars them from doing.  “Since that is one decision we made at that point in time, we would probably make it again,” he said. The city is also currently seeking a cheaper option for the health plan that it provides to active employees and retirees who are not yet 65 and eligible for Medicare, New York Focus reported last month, but Mulgrew said that wouldn’t affect retirees’ health care.  “It would not affect Senior Care at all. Senior Care is a separate entity completely,” he said. The group fighting on the law suit is still raising funds.     And to make matters worse -  Amazon to acquire One Medical clinics in latest push into health care. The $3.9 billion deal is Amazon’s latest acquisition in the health care industry. In 2018, it acquired PillPack, an online pharmacy. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/21/business/amazon-one-medical-deal.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes

Retiree Advocate will continue to fight for UFT retirees.