How Unity Sells a Health Plan

Every Unity MA talking point is in this email, written by a UFT Representative in 2022

Feel free to use as talking points if you think it will be helpful.

They say those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Someone sent me an email the other day that painted a pretty vivid portrait. If you read it, you may grow even more wary of the Unity Caucus and the hubris they displayed in trying to scam retirees. Of course, Unity deems ageism not only acceptable, but also hilarious, so of course they underestimated us.

The aforementioned talking points, from the email included here, could be familiar to you. If you’ve gone to Delegate Assembly or Retired Teacher Chapter meetings, you’ve heard Mulgrew say them all. When Mulgrew got his Very Smart People to come up with this plan, he added little or nothing.

These points are from 2022. As they are inaccurate and misleading, and as courts have ruled them so, you may wonder whether Unity’s using the same playbook now. LeRoy Barr made a grand show of saying that UFT would never force retirees into a Medicare Advantage plan. He amended a resolution brought by RTC, saying that any health changes would be run by the Delegate Assembly.

While that resolution is better than nothing, and while I voted for it, it’s watered down from the petition sent out by The Wire. The petition suggested any health care changes go to rank and file for a vote. The resolution shifted it to the UFT Delegate Assembly. Under Unity rule, the DA is a highly scripted event. Even with 300 independent retiree members, voting is likely to be be dominated by Unity.

And LeRoy’s amendment does not preclude the court forcing us into an MA plan. Nor does it preclude the city charging us for one. They could always go back, try to change 12-126 again, and act as though they were doing us a favor.

Unity wants us to believe MA for retirees is finished, but of course it is not. We’re facing a crucial case in the NY State Court of Appeals. This case will, if the city wins, dump us all into a Medicare Advantage plan. Not only does Unity support it as part of MLC, and not only do they refuse to actively oppose it, but Unity’s Mulgrew still insists our arguments against it have no merit.

Mulgrew has said UFT would fight for us if we lost in the Court of Appeals, but offers no details as to how. While legislation might then be our sole recourse, it’s doubtful Mulgrew’s ducklings would help us. There is a bill in City Council that would achieve our goals, but Unity virulently opposed supporting it at last month’s RTC meeting. There’s a state bill as well, and both, thus far, have gone nowhere, likely as not due to “union opposition,” including Unity’s.

So let’s review what their plan. While their argument may have evolved, it’s hard to believe their MO has.

Regardless of if the code changes the city and the MLC will move forward with a Medicare Advantage Plan. It will be a specially negotiated version of Medicare Advantage that will only be for NYC retirees. It must be called a Medicare Advantage Plan because that program gives us access to federal savings.

In other words, while this is a Medicare Advantage Plan, it is also not a Medicare Advantage Plan. We didn’t want to call it Medicare Advantage, but there was no other way we could dump you all into this plan and get reimbursed for it.

You see, we’ve promised to save New York City 600 million dollars a year, forever. In exchange for that, we’ve procured a three year contract! Let me point out, not everyone would give something forever and get something back for only three years. That’s innovative thinking from our Very Smart People!

And you get to pay for the contract, even though you will benefit from it not at all. What’s better than that? In fairness, in-service members also get to pay for it, with a ten percent reduction in what the city contributes to health care plans.

Mulgrew and his Unity minions claim the as-yet nonexistent in-service plan will be as good or better than what you have now. Do you believe them?

The previous plan, NYC Medicare Advantage Plus, which had a terrible roll out that led to much confusion and misinformation, no longer exists because Blue Cross/Blue Shield pulled out of the plan due to costly delays.

Unity can blame the rollout if they like, but they were the ones who rolled it out. Notable here is the strong implication it’s not our fault. Sure, we told you it was the bestest thing ever, but as it’s not our fault, and nothing ever is, the only thing left to do is blame those gosh darn NYC Retirees. Who the hell do they think they are fighting for their rights? Unions don’t do that! Unless we give permission, of course.

Do you recall the last time UFT put boots on the ground? When did they call all of us out there, instead of just sending out the same dozen staffers to give the appearance of activism? While I’ve been out multiple times with NYC Retirees, Unity has supported the very things we’d been protesting.

The UFT has vowed that whatever the new Medicare Advantage Plan is must mirror or enhance retirees' current benefits, and that there must be procedural safeguards in place for any denial of procedures, or issue with the plan. If these conditions are not in place the UFT will oppose any new plan.

Remember when we told you the Blue Cross/ Blue Shield plan was the bestest thing ever? Well, the new plan will be even bestester! You have our word! We’re never wrong, and on the rare occasions we are, it’s always someone else’s fault!

Because the City Council does not seem interested in amending the city administrative code it is very important that any new Medicare Advantage Plan is excellent as that will become the only health plan option available to city retirees. There will no longer be any pay-up options available.

This is quite interesting because Unity had insisted the previous plan was excellent. They sweetened the new one with a temporary hold on some pre-approvals, but the city was paying for these. As Mulgrew and his MLC buddies were set on “savings” for the city (and not us), it’s very had for me to believe that, had we buckled and allowed them to dump us with Aetna, the partial hold would not have sunsetted at the earliest opportunity. In fact, had we not fought them, there would not have been even that temporary agreement.

The judge’s ruling on the Medicare Advantage case says that any health care option offered to retirees must be premium free. Due to the rising cost of health care, the city and the MLC will not be able to afford multiple premium free plans. Currently, there are only two premium free options, the rest are pay up plans. The judge also said that the code does not say they need to offer more than one plan so if faced with this financial dilemma, then only one plan will be offered.

So basically, you have no choice. We did indeed get that impression from Mulgrew. If I recall correctly, he threatened they were going to dump us all into HIP or something. The thing about union is that we fight to make things better. At the very least, we fight to retain what we have. That is not remotely what Mulgrew and Unity were doing.

They sold us out. And for what? For a contract that hovered around cost of living. I don’t know exactly what made them think that we needed to give back in order to maintain cost of living, but there you are. Unity led the MLC to be snookered by the city, and made one of the worst deals I’ve ever heard of.

If this becomes the case the UFT will take action to sue for more options, but the city and the arbitrator have already made it clear that if we keep options for retirees then they will look to impose a premium on in-service health care. The UFT does not support this kind of pitting in-service and retirees against each other.

This is a very interesting statement. Why? In fact it was not the city, but rather Unity’s Mulgrew who pitted in-service and retirees against each other, months before this email was written. I was outraged by his suggesting if we failed to screw retirees, we’d have to pay premiums. It was blackmail.

Nice little health plan you have there. Wouldn’t want anything to happen to it.

Furthermore, Mulgrew’s email was blatantly anti-union. Union is one. Union is not a zero-sum game. Yet there was Unity Number One saying if you don’t vote to screw retirees, we will screw you instead. Curiously, when City Council declined to amend 12-126, nothing of the sort happened.

So the Unity member wrote the email saying they do not support this sort of action, even though they’d already taken it.

In fact, Unity agreed to premiums as an option for in-service members. So they can act shocked if they like. They can blame retirees if they like. But when you get right down to it, the group that enabled premiums is the Unity Caucus. Mulgrew can thump his chest from now until doomsday about premiums, but the fact is—he and his caucus agreed to them.

The UFT of course wants to avoid all of this which brings us back to the city administrative code, whereby if we add our amendment, we can work to keep offering options for retirees and high quality premium free health care for all members.

That is mighty generous of them, but the “option” was to charge all retirees 200 bucks a month (to start) to keep the health care they’d been promised, all their careers, for free. Unity sent two former VPs, both of whom were living pretty well with their DOE and Unity pensions, to say we needed “choice.”

If we did need the choice, the clear implication was that the MA plan was not good enough for all. In that case, it’s good enough for no one. The inequity of this “choice” was outrageous. Retired paras could never afford it. We have retired adult education teachers living on very small pensions. And many DC 37 employees have lower pensions than any of us.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a sacrificial lamb, and I don’t want to repeat history either. I want leadership that will go to MLC and suggest we unite to improve our lot rather than demean our health care. That’s why I’m voting for A BETTER CONTRACT, not only with the city, but also with our union leadership.

If you’re a retiree, please join us this Sunday night at 7 PM. I’ll be there, and I’ll share where we stand in our ongoing battle to retain real Medicare.