After killing a single-payer bill, the city’s public-sector labor leaders are trying to force a quarter million people from Medicare into pricier for-profit insurance plans. ... cost savings from Medicare
Advantage come from both higher copayments, essentially shifting costs from the government to individuals, as well as the fact that people receive less care either due to high claim denials or because they don’t seek out the care in the first place because fewer providers accept Medicare Advantage. Daily Poster -Are New York’s Unions Selling Out Retirees?
Tuesday, June 29, 2021 8:30 AM - Good Morning - Norm Scott
In the beginning, as the firmament coalesced into the formation of municipal unions, the city gave unions control over their health plans,
with a bureaucracy and a patronnage system. Thus, the UFT Health and
Welfare fund, which is not paid by union dues but by the city, thus
giving union leaders a windfall of sort to play around with. The calls
for moving the entire process under public management threatens both the
insurance companies adn their clients, the union leaderships. When Mayor Wagner gave the sign that public worker unions were kosher c. 1960, he was not being dumb. He tied the unions deeply to the city as co-managers.
So, Yes, the unions made sure to kill the NYS single payer bill and despite claiming to support a national medicare for all plan, our own union lines up with the Dem Party right wing in supporting the privatized health care industry.
Mulgrew whines about health care costs and how we have to reduce them - savings he calls them -- as Jonathan Halabi pointed out on Sunday night's webinar -- the savings come from us. Certainly not reducing or eliminating profits -- they are in business to make money.
If Mulgrew wants savings, he should check the costs in Europe which are half ours. And those countries have various forms of universal healthcare. In essence, by opposing public options, Mulgrew and other union leaders are fighting to keep health care prices higher.
Here is a great piece by Julia Rock at David Sirota's The Daily Poster -- I urge you to sign up - only $50 a year: https://www.dailyposter.com/are-new-yorks-unions-selling-out-retirees/
Read on:
A January 2021 study by The New School found that the city could save about $1.6 billion per year if it adopted a self-insurance program, as most major cities and large companies have done. That would involve setting up a health insurance plan just for the city’s employees and paying for claims directly, rather than paying premiums to a health insurance company which tends to be more expensive because insurance company profit margins are so large.
But since the negotiations between the MLC and Office of Labor Relations were held behind closed doors, retirees don’t know whether this option was ever considered.
UFT retirees will note that our chapter leaders have never told us about this option. Now here comes a fun fact:
Retirees pointed to MLC personnel with ties to the health insurance companies that could end up providing the new Medicare Advantage plans as potential conflicts of interest. Gregory Floyd, President of the Teamsters Local 237 and Secretary of the MLC, is on the board of EmblemHealth.
Holy shit! The Secretary of the MLC is on the board of Emblem Health. I've always been suspicious of the unions' slavish devotion to private insurance. Do we think the insurance companies don't lobby our union leaders? The explanation offered for why unions want to stick with privatized plans:
“For a lot of these MLC unions, the one tangible thing that they provide, in addition to wages, are health care benefits, and particularly the benefits that come out of their welfare funds,” said one New York City union representative, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “They want health care benefits associated with union leadership.”
The reasons go deeper than this. In the beginning, the city gave unions control over their health plans, with a bureaucracy and a patronage system. Thus, the UFT Health and Welfare fund, which is not paid by union dues but by the city, thus giving union leaders a windfall of sort to play around with. The calls for moving the entire process under public management threatens both the insurance companies adn their clients, the union leaderships.
The Daily Poster: https://www.dailyposter.com/are-new-yorks-unions-selling-out-retirees/
Are New York’s Unions Selling Out Retirees?
