Fool Me Once, Shame on You...

Fool me half a dozen times, and expect me to fall for it again, and I must be hopeless

Greetings from the Delaware Valley Bluegrass Festival. I’m here for the weekend, but staying at a Holiday Inn. (None of that camping stuff for me.) Last night I watched Del McCoury, 87 years old, sing his heart out, hitting high notes that elude many. You may not love his music, but it’s inspiring to see him able to do this at that age.

Of course, we all need help at every age. And it’s becoming increasingly more difficult, here in America, to get it. Trump is out there introducing pre-approvals to Medicare, in a clear effort to make it more like Medicare Advantage. This will be introduced in six states next year, New Jersey included, and it’s something we need to fight.

If you’re under 65, or in service, there is a new health plan out there for city workers. Unity, predictably, says it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Someone once pointed out to me there is, in fact, artisan bread. You cut it with a knife, and it’s got a wonderful crust. It’s got great texture, and isn’t full of chemicals to ensure it can sit in a plastic bag for two years without getting stale.

Queens UFT, in a social media post, wrote, “The new plan, like the current GHI CBP plan, allows for the option of tiering in the future to penalize hospitals that price gouge or act in bad faith.” This, to me, raises a red flag. While the current plan may have that option, I can’t recall it being exercised. Last I looked, a hospital visit would set me back 300 bucks on GHI.

Who’s to say, soon or immediately after this passes, a visit to NYU Langone or NY Presbytarian won’t run you a thousand bucks? PSC anticipated a tiered system last year, when this was first reared its ugly head. And Unity likes to surprise us, always at a moment convenient for them. That’s why they didn’t even bring up the plan until the first business day after the election.

Of course, the devil is in the details. And there’s a long history of Unity withholding them from us. In 2014, the contract they introduced looked pretty vanilla to me. Depending upon whom you asked, it either matched cost of living or lingered just behind it. And unlike the previous contract, we didn’t have to wait years to get paid money we ought to have received years ago.

There was this thing, though. Mulgrew presented it to the Delegate Assembly as having locked in premium-free health care. There were no extra co-pays, and there were no extreme measures taken. It was just a Very Good Deal from his Very Smart People.

Later, of course, we learned that wasn’t precisely true. For one thing, co-pays went up enormously. It now costs GHI subscribers a hundred bucks to visit the ubiquitous City MD and Pro Health Urgent Care facilities. Mulgrew said he’d like to have made it four hundred. You see, to him, we are Pavlov dogs and he wants to condition us not to go to these places.

Unfortunately, we often have little choice. My primary doctor used to work at Mt. Sinai. You’d call, get a central Mt. Sinai person, and that person would question you. If you passed the audition, you’d get to speak with her actual office. Then you’d have to persuade the people at THAT office that you needed to see the doctor. Then, if you didn’t pass the second audition, you’d go to Urgent Care. I was very happy when she moved to a private practice, even though I now travel a little farther to see her.

Incidentally, the last time I visited Pro Health, I looked at what Medicare and GHI paid. It was about a hundred bucks. That means a GHI member would pay the entire cost, with no help from insurance. Thanks, Unity!

It’s all well and good for Queens UFT to talk about penalizing hospitals. The thing is, though, if your doctor happens to be affiliated with one of the “penalized” hospitals, it won’t be the hospital paying the penalty. It will be you.

Now sure, you can go to Advantage Care and hope for the best. Or you can change doctors. There are always options if you value your pocketbook more than your health.

And hey, if you happen to have the sort of salary that precluded choosing the higher-priced option, well, there you go. Hey, wasn’t it Unity who promised paraprofessionals they could take a vacation this summer with the ten thousand dollar bonus they were going to get? Well, they’d better take that vacation right now, without the money, and they’d better get back pretty quickly. And don’t forget, when Unity actually had the money to give paras pensionable raises, they did nothing.

Now Unity’s out there talking about 1.6 million doctors nationwide being added:

There’s a small issue with that. There are not, in fact, that many doctors in the United States. Given that, it makes sense to question their other claims as well.

And then there’s the small issue of the way Unity presented us with their Medicare Advantage plan. I watched Mulgrew claim, repeatedly, that every doctor who accepted Medicare would accept this plan. There was a small issue with that as well. Unity’s Very Smart People had neglected to consult with said doctors (let alone recruit them). Members were told, by their doctors, that they would not accept this plan.

Unity then dropped the plan, which was the bestest thing ever, came back with another plan, that was even bester than the bestest thing ever, and lost the RTC election in a landslide. Until that precise point, Michael Mulgrew and Unity had no issue saying we indulged in conspiracy theories, spouted fairy tales, and were enemies of the union.

Suddenly, Unity had a revelation. Unity now opposed Medicare Advantage. However, they don’t oppose it so much that they want to protect it. Therefore they continue to lobby against Intro 1096, which would not only enshrine our current protection into law, but also eliminate the Mulgrew Co-pays. (You know, the copays we pay on top of the premiums Unity repeatedly claims we do NOT pay.)

The point is this—they’ve lied to us before, over and over. Their MO is predictable. They introduce things with urgency—we need to pass this thing right now. We haven’t got time to show you the whole contract. Trust us. We know what’s best.

They hurry it through. Only after it’s passed do you learn there’s some thing, hidden in Appendix B, that says we want to charge you for your current coverage, or dump it altogether, or introduce outrageous co-pays, or whatever.

This is exacerbated by the toothless resolution we, in the RCT, introduced to the Delegate Assembly. There was a proposal, by ABC’s Daniel Alicea and others, to bring all health changes to membership vote, and a petition drive to do so. Instead of that, we proposed it go to the Delegate Assembly, which, despite the presence of opposition retirees, remains a rubber stamp for the Unity Caucus.

Worse, Unity amended it. First, they gave lip service to opposing Medicare Advantage. Again, they continue to do nothing to ensure that. Second, they created this phony-baloney rubber stamp health committee, simply to make it appear Unity was not making unilateral decisions.

Yesterday, Mulgrew announced support for bringing this measure to the rubber-stamp DA was unanimous. At least five Retiree Advocate members are on this committee. At least four was in attendance. Who is speaking for those of us who’ve learned, from hard experience, not to trust the Unity Caucus?

Too bad Geoff Sorkin didn’t see fit to include any ABC members in his hand-picked committee. We would have stood and objected to introducing anything whatsoever without not only having the full contract and facts, but also time to examine them.

Is that too much to ask?

Unity clearly thinks so.