Marianne on Brian Lehrer show, Mulgrew/UnityCaucusCare will Raise, Not Lower Costs - 25 billion in overpayment, Lobbying Frenzy to Stop Plan to Cut Billions in Medicare Fraud

The showdown underscores just how important — and lucrative — Medicare Advantage has become to insurers and doctors’ groups that are paid by the federal government to care for older Americans. Roughly $400 billion in taxpayer money went to these private plans last year. Profits on Medicare Advantage plans are at least double what insurers earn from other kinds of policies, according to a recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Without reforms, taxpayers will spend about $25 billion next year in “excess” payments to the private plans, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, a nonpartisan research group that advises Congress.... NYT

Friday, March 25, 2023

First let's post the link Marianne's appearance on Brian Lehrer show Thursday morning - she took everything thrown at her and educated Brian and the listeners. A transcript may be available. Must listen - https://www.wnyc.org/story/nyc-retirees-speak-out-about-health-plan-changes.

One thing has become increasingly care - switching us out of traditional medicare to MedAdv will raise healthcare costs by billions. Thursday's NYT has an explosive article in the print section which I am reproducing below, with the charts that show how they make money by upcoding. Like my blood tests show some sugar escalation - they will take that and get more money from medicare by classifying me as pre-diabetic.

Some hints on enormous profits for MedAdv plans -- fraud, upcoding ----- How our union's move to MedAadv will raise not cut costs while reducing service for the sick.

It would significantly lower payments — by billions of dollars a year — to Medicare Advantage, the private plans that now cover about half of the government’s health program for older Americans. The change in payment formulas is an effort, Biden administration officials say, to tackle widespread abuses and fraud in the increasingly popular private program. In the last decade, reams of evidence uncovered in lawsuits and audits revealed systematic overbilling of the government. A final decision on the payments is expected shortly, and is one of a series of tough new rules aimed at reining in the industry. The changes fit into a broader effort by the White House to shore up the Medicare trust fund..  NYT March 23, 2023

 

UNITYCAUCUS-CARE 

Mulgrewcare does the opposite - weakens the Medicare trust fund. This was my theme when I spoke at the UFT Ex Bd on Monday, to mostly deaf Unity Caucus ears. I think we need to make it clear - this is a Unity Caucus, not a Mulgrew operation. Do we think if Mulgrew left Unity would not support this move? 

 

UFT is acting like Republicans

Nick had a summary of my comments (which if not  for him I wouldn't remember):

Norm Scott: UFT member since 67. Wearing a UFT logo and hope no lawyers contact me. Healthcare: MAP isn’t Medicare. If I were to pay someone to go to the grocery store for me, that’s kind of like what Aetna is going to do with our healthcare. If you don’t understand that healthcare hasn’t increased in cost because of profits and denial of benefits…I hear some people say I don’t really care about it – it’s just politics. I’m really disturbed by the fact that I may not have access to my doctors. I’ve got doctors for every part of my body. I’m getting calls from all over the country by people saying they might not get access to doctors. 60% of people are now on MAP. But what happens when it’s 80 and 90%? I’m sorry to say but this union is acting like the Republicans – the Republicans will end up killing Medicare. Mulgrew talks about representational voting at MLC, but not in the UFT. Even though Retiree Advocate got about 1/3 of the vote in the retiree chapter election, we get no say at all – not a single delegate. We think there should be a vote on questions of healthcare. We are starting a petition campaign, where if we get 1/3 of this body, we can get a referendum to vote on any healthcare changes. You might win that vote  anyways – why not support it. Give members a choice to vote.

I also said that Aetna is not doing this for charity but for enormous profits -- that is the cause of healthcare rise from insurance companies, hospitals, and doctor practice corporations. By joining in with MedAdv company lines, the UFT is helping undermine and bankrupt traditional medicare which is the only publicly run healthcare agency and instrumental in keeping healthcare costs down.

 

Another example of the UFT leadership Scam from Nick:

• Why is Mulgrew Exaggerating the cost of going to CityMD?

 A few more highlights if you don't have time to read the whole thing:

• The showdown underscores just how important — and lucrative — Medicare Advantage has become to insurers and doctors’ groups that are paid by the federal government to care for older Americans. Roughly $400 billion in taxpayer money went to these private plans last year. Profits on Medicare Advantage plans are at least double what insurers earn from other kinds of policies, according to a recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
• Older Americans have flocked to Medicare Advantage, finding that many policies offer lower premiums and more benefits than the traditional government program. The insurers receive a flat rate for every person they sign up — and get bonuses for those with serious health conditions, because their medical care typically costs more. But numerous studies from academic researchers, government watchdog agencies and federal fraud prosecutions underscore how the insurers have manipulated the system by attaching as many diagnosis codes as possible to their patients’ records to harvest these bonus payments. Four of the largest five insurers have either settled or are currently facing lawsuits claiming fraudulent coding. Similar lawsuits have also been brought against an array of smaller health plans.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/22/health/medicare-insurance-fraud.html 

Biden Plan to Cut Billions in Medicare Fraud Ignites Lobbying Frenzy

The Biden administration has proposed changes to how it would pay private Medicare Advantage plans, setting off a lobbying frenzy.

UFT/Unity/AFT/NYSUT Bait and Switch Pro-Privatization Healthcare Duplicity, Playing Swap the Lobbyists Game

Oh, what a tangled web they weave,  

when first they practice to deceive! 

 

Always watch what UFT/AFT/NYSUT Leaders do, not what they say.

 

Ugh! I Mean UGH!!!!!!

 

• UFT political director (and former Cuomo aide) Cassie Prugh leaves for lobbying firm in December but UFT may retain her and her firm (rumor - @10k a month).
  
• Assistant UFT political director Angel Vasquez remains in place despite primarying (and losing) major UFT supporter Robert Jackson. 
• Mulgrew lists himself as a lobbyist along with Vasquez. Vasquez, as Prugh’s assistant, is tasked with lobbying on a city level. As he describes in his LinkedIn bio. Clearly he was responsible for the failed campaign to influence the City Council to amend 12-126. An attempt that hurts retirees and active workers as the code provides decades old safeguards protecting the healthcare of city workers. UFT Payments to lobbyists (Vasquez and Mulgrew?) are listed as 94K. Is this in addition to their UFT salaries?
  

I've been working on this story about UFT/NYSUT political directors that points to how our local, state, national union work in tandem with the corporate Democrats' aim to make sure healthcare remains under the control of private insurance. Remember how quickly Obama abandoned the public option in order to get the private insurance companies to support Obamacare because they are making a fortune? Fundamental neo-liberal concept that better profit making private than anything government. Reaganism from both parties. Only the Bernie left pushes back. 

Thanks to Daniel Alicea for doing the fundamental research. 

Daniel has provided some insights into explaining the reasoning behind the Mulgrew promotion of Medicare Advantage which is controlled by private profit making insurance over the publicly managed Medicare system. 

 

The key: the union is bonded at the hip to the corporate wing of the Dem party which is also pro-privatization which also promotes medicare advantage over Medicare. Biden even appointed a corp exec to run Medicare - the classic fox in the hen house. (see below for details). A gang of lobbyists do their thing very successfully.

Daniel's research into the history of our local, state, national teacher union positions on healthcare shows an evolution going from support for public option toward privately managed care with some careful managing of the language used.

In 2017, the unions flirted theatrically with Bernie Sander’s popular single payer Medicare For All plan supported by a supermajority of Americans. However, Daniel asserts that with the campaigns of Harris and Biden, the union machines like AFT and AFL-CIO fall in line with the privatized vision for private-public national healthcare system. 

 

There's a difference between single payer and medicare for all. Medicare for all Obama care style keeps the private insurers in the game. Single payer means the government pays all bills and also has the ability to control healthcare costs. 

Note this point whenever Mulgrew whines about healthcare costs going up:

In 1996 Pataki rescinded, decades-old practice of setting statewide hospital pricing.

Flashback: https://www.nytimes.com/1996/03/21/nyregion/pataki-is-seeking-to-end-regulation-of-hospital-rates.html

While mulgrew railed at high health costs his solution was to lower cost to city but never to use lobbyists to put hospital price controls in place by repealing the Pataki '96 giveaway to the hospitals. It’s acceptance that prices must rise and we are the ones who must pay, not the insurance companies.

And have you noticed how since then hospitals have consolidated?

The AFT’s shift on Medicare Advantage and privatization of Medicare 

into a few too big to fail groups?

And the disappearance or deterioration of public hospital options?   

• Here's a link to a dossier of links and documents showing this shift among our teachers unions from a strong anti-privatization stance for decades until the 2019-20 shift to privatization through Medicare Advantage and ACOs. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TmGybt3FwmrVOAxRaL-gd5AD0H-lRs3tV9JjtciTuHU/edit
  

Yes they call for universal coverage but in the model of an Obamacare system extension which is better than nothing but fundamentally is a windfall for private insurers. They are careful in not calling for a single payer system like we have with traditional Medicare. So when Mulgrew tries to move us from single payer Medicare to multi-payer Medicare Advantage, he is affirming the corp Dem (ie. Biden/Shumer/Pelosi, etc) position on healthcare vs the Bernie Sanders single payer wing.

 

Some Key takeaways:

• UFT/AFT leaders "claim" they want universal healthcare while doing everything they can to undermine the possibilities on all levels.
• Ditto for their partners in the Democratic Party run by a center/right connected to private health insurance lobbyists.
  
• UFT hires lobby firm representing healthcare industry.
• Biden chooses member of same firm to run Medicare. 
• Both Dems and UFT try selling universal healthcare for all but must go through private insurance companies instead of single payer.
  

Ed Notes' recent report on the coming changes in the NY State United Teachers (NYSUT News: Going - Pres. Andy Pallotta, Coming - Melinda Person Who? Has Never Been a Teacher - Succession or Coup?) we mentioned that lobbyist Cassie Prugh had left the UFT in December to go work for a private firm, Manatt, Phelps, and Phillips, LLP, leaving her UFT position vacant. Or maybe not. (See below for Prugh's lobby listings.) Also note above and below the letter Mulgew sent to state ethics listing himself and Vasquez as lobbyists at 94K a year while at the same time we hear they may use Prugh, now employed by Manatt, etc. as a consultant. Money to burn. Our money.

 

Want an example of litigation won by Manatt in California where they defended the right of hospitals NOT to reveal fees? Remember, Prugh comes out of the Cuomo admin - check his record on hospitals (and nursing homes).

Manatt secured a landmark victory for its client Dignity Health, a California-based nonprofit hospital system, on October 13, when the California Court of Appeal ruled in favor of the hospital in Gray v. Dignity Health. The decision affirmed the dismissal of a putative systemwide class action lawsuit that claimed Dignity Health unlawfully failed to disclose emergency room fees. The decision also held that Dignity Health complies with all state and federal pricing disclosure laws, none of which imposes a duty to disclose emergency room fees. The Court of Appeal held that the disclosure duty the plaintiff wanted to impose was directly contrary to a host of federal and state laws that prohibit hospitals from discussing cost with patients in the emergency room prior to treating them, thus “disregard[ing] the long standing regulatory environment within which emergency departments operate, which emphasizes that no one in need of emergency care should be deterred from receiving it because of cost.” 

Do you think this victory for hospitals helped them keep prices high?

 

Now how about this one as we tie the Biden admin to Manatt:

 

 

Jeez - the lady running Medicare managed the same firm that Cassie Prugh is working for. A tangled web indeed. Recently we found that Medicare was going to let the private insurers get away with billions in defrauding Medicare.

Daniel's next career should be investigative reporter.

No legislative reports at Ex Bd meetings 

Ok, so we have the link between Prugh and Manatt and the UFT.  For years we enjoyed former UFT Leg rep Paul Egan's reports at Ex Bd meetings because we wanted the latest soccer scores from Manchester United. We no longer get regular reports since Prugh left. Ask who replaced her and you get vague answers, including the UFT will now hire her and her firm as consultants. Now add to this that Prugh's deputy has been Angel Vasquez who outraged people by forcing Robert Jackson, probably the most loyal UFT supporter, into a primary for State Senate. We should not be using our dues to pay Angel Vasquez to work for the UFT. He was the agent of the right wing Dem attempt to purge a progressive. 

 

Here are some of Daniel's tweets on the story:

@manatt

is a VERY big lobbying firm.

@UFT

just secured them as their lobbying firm in Jan. Significant for a few reasons. 1. Manatt is one of the most influential lobbyists for Medicare Advantage & ACOs. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/WM/WM00/20190612/109618/HHRG-116-WM00-Wstate-Brooks-LaSureC-20190612.pdf 

 

2.

@UFT

fmr political director

@cassieprugh

who just left, now UFT lobbyist in Albany. 

 

3. Fmr managing director for Manatt is

@BrooksLaSureCMS

appointed by Biden as director for CMS. She is on record in her belief that the path to national healthcare is through privatization.

 

Prugh and her assistant,

@angelvasq104

have lobbied with

@UFT

FOR admin code 12-126. The provision that protects city worker healthcare. Vasquez still with

@UFT

and on payroll. He ran against

@SenatorRJackson

in 2022. And is responsible for lobbying pols in NYC like

@CnDelarosa

 

To clarify, Prugh and Vasquez lobbied for the ELIMINATION of admin code 12-126.

A single payer option is off the table on state & nat’l level for the big Dem machine. Despite lip service. See Biden & Harris vision for private-public plans. We see this vision in 2019 when

@BrooksLaSureCMS

testified before Congress. It’s as if she targets NYHA https://docs.house.gov/meetings/WM/WM 

This privatization vision is reflected in our teacher unions when

@rweingarten

voted against including Medicare for All on DNC platform. And after decades of anti-privatization policy

@AFT

passes a resolution in 2020 during #lockdown that opens path to privatization.

This shift away from anti-privatization from teacher unions is made evident when

@aft

and

@nysut

rejected separate resolutions seeking to reaffirm our past rejection of privatization of Medicare. This is the AFT reso that was REJECTED in committee and not brought to a vote.

 And some source material:

https://twitter.com/educatorsofnyc/status/1625840781075308544?s=20https://twitter.com/educatorsofnyc/status/1625840781075308544?s=20

MulgrewCare Update: It's About Collusion and Civil Rights - Retiree Evie Rich Uncovers the Racism, Sexism and economic impact - Amsterdam News

Brewer correctly characterizes for-hire arbitrator Martin Scheinman’s December 15, filing in favor of the Medicare Advantage switcheroo a “non-binding report.” Pizzitola is more blunt, calling it “paid propaganda.”... Joe Maniscalco, Working-Bites

 The hits keep coming for Mulgrewcare with the above piece just out - see full article below. Then this dagger to the heart of Mulgrewcare by retiree Evie Rich (also reprinted below).

this thoughtful piece penned by Evie Rich

@NYAmNews thru a BIPOC lens about your Medicare privatization scheme & how it affects all workers, but especially workers of color is poignant & a clarion call. Reverse course, now. Workers UNITE! --- Educators of NYC

Key Takeaways from the sharply written article in The Amsterdam News:

• we must see ourselves as members of a new army of ordinary people, determined to change the delivery of health care in New York City. Let’s take power away from those who “stay back” and move forward, seeking a permanent solution to the central issue of our time: access to free, comprehensive, affordable health care. 
• Health care is not only a human right. Access to quality, comprehensive, affordable health care is imperative. We are an army of older residents engaged in this struggle and determined to win it — for ourselves, our children and our children’s children.
• The stakes are high here. This is not simply a retiree issue. It affects large numbers of the city’s current work force and the larger population as well. A change in Section 12-126 of the Administrative Code opens the door to future changes in the quality and cost of active employees’ health insurance. 
• a racist healthcare system that has always denied Black and brown people access to quality care. Passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 required the 20% co-pay as dictated by Republicans and Southern Democrats. Healthcare inadequacies are rooted in this system, which recognizes the financial limitations of some patients as well as limited access to preventive care. Too many people of color are underinsured or uninsured.  
• Thirty-one of the 51 City Council members are people of color. They represent a NY City workforce of 305,000 that is predominantly female and minority. Eighteen percent of the workforce is eligible to retire now and 29% is eligible to retire in five years. Assessing that workforce, 58% of the men and only 36% of the women are in the top income bracket of $70,000 or more. Among retirees, the disparity in income is probably greater. The point here is that they are mostly white. 
•  One in four African-American families has a net worth of zero! Imposition of the Medicare Advantage Plan would create a two-tiered healthcare apparatus dominated by women and low-income families. In a forced transfer to a Medicare Advantage Plus program, Latinx and African Americans will be denied the care we need.
  

 https://amsterdamnews.com/news/2022/12/19/time-to-stand-up-and-go-tell-it-on-the-mountain/

 

At the most recent Retiree Chapter Meeting, I was on zoom and heard a retired para and secretary point out they don't have the option to opt out because their pensions are so low. These were not people in the activist wing of the retiees. A year ago I was prepared to spend $4500 a year to keep my current Medicare and Seniorcare because I could afford it. The court case killed that by declaring I could not be charged. Mulgrew wants to change the admin code so I and others of economic means can do so. One of the recent outrages from Unity hacks was Lyn Winderbaum saying she likes her Medicare and wants to pay to keep it. Marianne took her down for that, pointing out the inequities. I know retirees before me with pretty low pensions. So, now I am opposed to that option because I have come to realize just how unfair it is for so many people who cannot afford to do what I can.  

You can demonstrate your unhappiness with Mulgrew and Unity by coming to 52 Broadway tomorrow - Wednesday at 3:30 to show your displeasure.

 

And just out on Work-Bites:

Medicare Advantage Is a National Scandal - How Thick Could New York City’s Information Bubble Be?

https://www.work-bites.com/view-all/1n72juz2psj2e6v48d80bgwyati58c?fbclid=IwAR1yo5uAUf0jpWL723sE2H3PfUvGn-rsymJaC3lr0pWhrF2hwPdFX1p5x5c

Collusion.

That’s what the campaign by New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the heads of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] to push municipal retirees into a privatized for-profit Medicare Advantage healthcare program looks like to the many thousands who’ve spent more than a year trying to stop the plan.

What else can a rational human being conclude other than collusion against municipal retirees?

Medicare Advantage is one of the filthiest scandals in America today with lawmakers in Congress calling for the program’s nationwide abolition. And yet, the heads of the biggest city in the country are running around insisting Medicare Advantage is a good deal for retirees.

Really?

How thick would that bubble have to be to keep all that information out?

Work-Bites has already reported on some of the mounting evidence against privatized, for-profit Medicare Advantage plans and the delays, denials and deaths that come with them.

Here’s a little recap: earlier this month, retired Delaware State Senator Karen Peterson told us how “your healthcare can really go off the rails” with Medicare Advantage.

Nevertheless, the powerbrokers in Peterson’s state, as here in NYC, tried to sell municipal retirees on Medicare Advantage, insisting it was “just as good” as what they already had — “only better.”

Turns out, the Medicare Advantage contract Delaware signed with a private healthcare insurance company in September, actually contained 2,030 pre-authorizations — 340 pre-authorizations for medications — and 1,690 pre-authorizations for procedures.

Few things concern dedicated municipal retirees more than suddenly not being able to see their doctor.

A recently-released report from the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance critical of Medicare Advantage chicanery found instances of “provider network confusion” across 10 states where the beneficiary was “switched into a new plan and was unaware that their current doctors were not covered under their new plan’s network until they began to use the new plan.”

Gale Brewer, former Manhattan Borough President and current City Council Member representing the Upper West Side, doesn’t seem to have any problem piercing any sort of Medicare Advantage information bubble.

“The city has offered various Medicare Advantage plans for years,” Brewer said in a stamens this week, “but few retirees choose them because they are demonstrably worse than Senior Care.”

She goes on to say, “Medicare advantage plans give private insurance companies the power to overrule primary care physicians — and to say which procedures will be permitted,” she added. “Many retirees have health care issues and work very hard to stay healthy. Keeping their current insurance plan, called Senior Care, is critical in retaining access to their doctors and ensuring continuity of care.”

Gale Brewer gets it.

WHY AREN’T THEY TALKING WITH RETIREES?

That awareness has prompted Brewer to urge all parties involved to “sit down together and work this out.”

Marianne Pizzitola, president of the NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees and Fire Department EMS Retirees Association, has spent months calling for a sit-down with MLC heads Michael Mulgrew, Harry Garrido and Harry Nespoli.

Instead of taking her up on the offer, however, the trio, along wih Mayor Eric Adams — the former Medicare Advantage critic who used to call the program a “bait and switch” — have been pushing pell-mell to privatize the healthcare for tens of thousands of retired trade unionists — raging in the courts, issuing ultimatums, leaning on New York City Council members to tear up part of the City Administrative Code and implementing extra health costs.

Again, all at the precise moment Medicare Advantage plans are being exposed as predatory money grabs and raked across the coals from coast-to-coast.

Brewer correctly characterizes for-hire arbitrator Martin Scheinman’s December 15, filing in favor of the Medicare Advantage switcheroo a “non-binding report.”

Pizzitola is more blunt, calling it “paid propaganda.”

”The December 15th Scheinman report is not a “ruling”, it’s an opinion,” Pizzitola said in a statement released this week. “It’s paid propaganda and they’re hoping the city council falls for it. It is not a decision, it is not a ruling, it is not an award…and yet everyone fell for the biggest play in history…a paid opinion piece!”

Municipal retiree groups have already identified at least $300 million in savings to the City of New York — and none of it necessitates pushing them into a disastrous for-profit Medicare Advantage plan that progressive lawmakers in D.C. say ought to be abolished.

“OMB knows about some of these savings options, and has not implemented them,” Pizzitola says. “Nor have they informed the city council they exist. OMB was unaware of others we suggested in a recent meeting! Which is worse? And yet they told the Mayor’s office there is only one path forward! How can the mayor or the council make a decision if they are not being properly informed by OMB?”

Those leading the charge for Medicare Advantage are some of the most powerful people in the City of New York today. Elderly Municipal retirees are among the weakest and most vulnerable. But they are all hard-working trade unionists who’ve spent their entire working careers in education, the Fire Department, building trades, law enforcement — you name it. Corporate-owned, anti-labor media outlets in this town, as they did in Delaware, are trying to dismiss them all as a small group of crotchety old cranks. We should all remember that and consumer our media accordingly.

New York City municipal retirees certainly remember the 2014 pact between former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration and UFT President Michael Mulgrew — the faustian deal that allowed $1.3 million from the city’s Health Stabilization Fund to be used to cover needed raises following a decade of austerity under billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg.

They’ve connected all the dots and refuse to be steamrolled by anyone. They simply can’t afford to pretend to live in a Medicare Advantage information bubble. And neither can any of the “retirees in training” following right after them.

 

Here's the full Amsterdam News piece.

Time to Stand Up and Go Tell It on the Mountain! 

by Evie Rich December 19, 2022

 

If you’re white, you’re right;

If you’re brown, stick around;

If you’re black, stay back!

UFT Bloggers #Mulgrewcare updates, Marianne Pizzitola guest on Daniel Alicea "Talk Out of School Sat. 1PM WBAI

This week there was a Retiree Chapter Meeting - Tuesday, Nov. 15 and A Delegate Assembly, Nov. 16 - I attended the RTC meeting and was outside the DA leafleting. 

 

UPDATE- Listen to archive- https://talk-out-of-school.simplecast.com/episodes/healthcaredebacle

 

But first some exciting upcoming news from Daniel:

Sat 11/19 at 1 pm, on @WBAI 99.5 , listen to my talk w/ Marianne Pizzitola, of the Organization of Public Service Retirees abt the NYC teacher, city worker & retiree healthcare debacle. We’ll discuss Medicare Advantage & attempts to change the city code that protects HC.

 

Here are DA minutes from James and Nick:

• LIVE BLOGGING FROM NOVEMBER DA

• Notes from November DA – UFC High School Executive Board Authors first Resolution with UFT Leadership

I could say a lot about Mulgrew's presentation on Tuesday at the RTC -- I began writing something pointing to inaccuracies or obfuscations but other bloggers are covering some of the same ground.

 

One thing - Mulgrew keeps saying the judge took away collective bargaining and says the city can offer us only one plan - in fact his ruling says they can offer us the current option BUT CAN'T CHARGE US -- sure -- Mulgrew is fighting to give me the choice to pay $4500 a year for me and my wife for what we are now paying nothing. Ice water in the winter.

The  other issue I harped on was his changing his tune to attack corporate greed of private insurers while handing these private insurers an enormous contract that would suck money out of the only public option we have - traditional Medicare. He says he wants a national universal healthcare system while pushing the transfer of $600 a year out of Medicare and thus helping destroy the public option. I had my hand up for that question but somehow they missed me.  I need to trip the lady with the mic as she walks by.

 

I just got an email with a list of alternatives ways of paying for healthcare - I added it below the blog links.

 

That's all I will say for now since I can't keep up with these bloggers - James, Arthur and Jonathan -  they are on the case. So I'll just link with a few excepts below -- I have been in some contact in private chats with all of them.

Jonathan: Big Picture vs Misdirection – Admin Code 12-126

Mulgrew wants Medicare Advantage Plus. Retirees block him. He tries to change the law to “unblock” the City and the MLC (so they can force retirees onto Medicare Advantage). They block him again. He tries campaigning with members. Nope. He tries using the Campion letter to scare members into supporting amending 12-126 so he can force retirees into Medicare Advantage. Still not working.

• Mulgrew issues a new “fact” sheet.
• He buries the argument over 12-126 in details (it’s SIX pages. I’m not sharing)
• He claims this has nothing to do with Medicare Advantage.

So I put it to you. After fighting for almost two years to force retirees onto Medicare Advantage, is Mulgrew now fighting, with the same people on his side, and the same opponents, but not about Medicare Advantage anymore?

 

Arthur: This article in Gotham Gazette -

UFT and MLC Leadership Deceived Us About Health Care...was such a dagger to the heart of UFT leadership - "Say it ain't so, Arthur" -- they reached out to him as he reports in this follow-up:

I Meet With UFT to Discuss Healthcare - http://nyceducator.com/2022/11/i-meet-with-uft-to-discuss-healthcare.html

I got a little bit of flack for my Gotham Gazette piece. There were many arguments put forth. Some were more understandable than others. While they had a lot to say, I did not get a strong sense my responses were valued. 

They told me the proposed Advantage plan, which does not actually exist anymore, were it to be replaced, would do everything the current standard Medicare plan does. It's absolutely necessary to change the code, they said, or the city will place everyone in some Advantage plan or another. Some disagree. Personally, I remain unpersuaded that changing the code is necessary, and I am not eager to enable the Eric Adams administration. 

 

James: MULGREW ADMITS TO DELEGATES THAT RETIREE PLANS DON'T COME CLOSE TO HIP-HMO RATE SO WHY ARE THOUSANDS PAYING PREMIUMS?

Mulgrew's new argument appears to be that we must change the law so the City-MLC can create a new cheaper benchmark healthcare plan. At that point, the City will be able to legally charge retirees who don't take their new cheap plan a monthly premium for what the City is currently illegally charging them for. 

... the judge didn't say anything limiting our collective bargaining rights. They are subject to the Taylor Law where healthcare is a mandatory subject of bargaining. Nothing on healthcare can change without union agreement. Also, remember for school district employees state law says a school district cannot diminish retiree health benefits unless they do the same to active workers.

Why the desperation of Mulgrew to giveback on healthcare?

Here is the letter to The Chief:

Please read the op-ed for alternatives to the Medicare crisis.

This letter was sent to council member Erik Bottcher by a CROC member.

Kindly note the following alternatives presented by CROC (Cross Union Retirees Committee)  in a recent letter that you might have received as a City Council Member( see below)  I am also sharing with you an excellent Op-Ed that appeared in today's The Chief issue, written by one of our incredibly active PSC retirees, Dr. Evelyn Jones Rich. It presents all the necessary background information and rationale to VOTE No to any changes to 12-126  and rather ask the elected officials and union leaders to do the right thing: looking for real alternatives that would not affect the health care benefits of the in-service municipal employees and retirees. https://thechiefleader.com/stories/find-a-better-solution-to-the-medicare-impasse-or-resign,49283

Bottom line: what we are looking for is for the City Council as a whole to go beyond predictions, and rather stand up publicly with us now  and say that you are all committing to Vote No to any changes to 12-126 and to look for any other viable option that will not affect any of us as retirees or in- service municipal employees.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear                     , 

Retirees urge you to protect our healthcare. Please vote NO on any amendment to Administrative Code 12-126. 

Healthcare costs are high but we believe the City can bridge funding for the next several years by drawing on reserves in the Retiree Health Benefits Trust Fund to shore up the Health Stabilization Fund. This would allow time to seriously evaluate alternatives that the OLR and MLC have themselves put on the table.

Such long-term cost-saving measures to explore could include:

1)  Creating a city-run self-insurance plan;
2)  Negotiating aggressive hospital cost-containment measures;
3)  Consolidating and negotiating group drug plans;
4)  Auditing the membership of the insurance plans to remove those ineligible for benefits;
5)  Reining in billions wasted on bad management and inefficiencies used in healthcare plans. 

There are practical solutions that creative, competent minds can come up with. We, retirees, have thought of just a few. Retirees should not be forced to lose their current quality Medicare with Seniorcare benefits while these long-term alternatives are explored. 

Please stand with 1/4 million municipal  retirees, current municipal employees and their dependents. Do not throw us under the bus! Vote NO on any amendment to Administrative Code 12-126. 

Signed, 

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