Don't Sit and Wait for Mulgrew and Minions

We need a deal with Sloan Kettering ASAP.

NoBy now, you’ve received a letter from Michael Mulgrew regarding Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), and Anthem, our health care provider. In case you haven’t, I’ve posted mine below. This is cause for concern, as MSK is widely regarded as the best cancer center in our area, if not anywhere.

For reasons I’ll get into very soon, we can’t wait for Michael Mulgrew and the others at Municipal Labor Committee to help us. This is a dire situation and it’s on us to let Anthem know we need this. You can follow the instructions in the above graphic, and for good measure you can also email the CEO of MSK, Selwyn M. Vickers, MD, FACS. Send him a tweet. Send MSK a tweet as well.

I know firsthand how frightening it is to get a cancer diagnosis. While I did not use MSK, I had a very bumpy road with mine. I’ll spare you details, but I’m very thankful to be here and able to discuss them. I absolutely understand the extreme anxiety cancer causes. I also understand how much worse people will feel after getting Mulgrew’s letter.

Here’s a thing—when you’re negotiating, it may be unwise to very publicly broadcast the thing you’re negotiating for is extremely valuable to you. For example, if you wanted to sell me a car, and I told you I’ve wanted a car like that all my life, you’d likely decide to price it higher. In fairness, Mulgrew was trying to reassure people before they got an unsettling letter from MSK.

That said, it appears Mulgrew and his fellow geniuses over at Municipal Labor Committee will be negotiating with MSK. And at this point, I have to ask, would we be in a better negotiating position if they had not forked over one billion dollars of our 1.8 billion dollar Health Stabilization Fund back in 2014? Would we be in a better negotiating position if they had not agreed to give the city 600 million dollars in health savings per year, forever, in exchange for a three-year contract, back in 2018?

Should Mulgrew succeed, he will portray himself as a hero. In that case, he will ask you to forget about the abysmal negotiations that brought us to this point. He will ask you to forget that he tried to make retirees pay for his blunders by dumping them into an inferior Advantage plan. He will ask you to forget that there is an impending, newer plan that will save Eric Adams 10% for in-service members and non-Medicare eligible retirees.

Here’s a fact—even if MLC somehow succeeds in retaining MSK services, we have no assurances any Anthem plans will survive. Eric Adams smiles to our faces, blames our union, says he’s looking out for us, but as we speak he’s got a court case pending to take real Medicare away from retirees. Furthermore, as I just said, there is some sort of cheaper plan on its way for in-service members and non-Medicare eligible retirees on the horizon.

Readers of this Substack well know that Michael Mulgrew has paid valuable lip service to opposing these plans, but has done nothing whatsoever to actually preclude incoming inferior health plans for all union members.

It’s on us, though, to do what we can about the situation on hand. We can’t afford to rest on our laurels and hope Mulgrew and MLC will do the right thing. Their history suggests they wouldn’t recognize the right thing if it were hitting them over the head.

Let’s protect ourselves as best we can for now. Let’s continue to do so by battling to retain all the health care we have now. And lets work to ensure that no one else has to go through the nonsense Mulgrew and UFT Unity have put us through.

Be well, and let’s do everything within our power to ensure we all stay that way.

Thanks to Daniel and Marianne.

Dear Arthur,

We’re writing to provide an important update on some current health care news.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Anthem (formerly Empire BlueCross BlueShield) have been engaged in contentious contract renewal negotiations. Anthem is the part of the New York City GHI-CBP and GHI Senior Care plans that provides the hospital portion of those city health care plans.

Anthem has alerted us that this week, MSK may start mailing letters to all current patients with Anthem coverage (GHI-CBP, GHI Senior Care and all other Anthem NYC health plans) notifying them that MSK facilities may become out-of-network on Jan. 1, 2025, if they are unable to reach an agreement. We recognize that this has the potential to cause great concern.

We want all members who are MSK patients to rest assured that there are legal protections for the continuation of care for current patients and that regardless of the outcome of the contract, your treatment will not be interrupted.

The UFT has had a special relationship with both organizations. Our Welfare Fund has a partnership with MSK, offering the concierge MSK Direct program. We do not want this important service to be in jeopardy for future use.

These contract renewals with various services and providers happen all the time and are part of the ongoing work of maintaining our high-quality health care. We fully expect that a resolution will ultimately be reached.

It is the UFT’s priority to ensure that MSK never drops out of our network, and we will do everything in our power to make certain that it doesn’t. Throughout this negotiation, we, as part of the Municipal Labor Committee, will push both sides to come to a fair agreement that allows us to maintain the critical services that MSK provides for our members as part of our city health plans.

We will keep you updated as we hear more.

Sincerely,