Much Ado About MSK

But what's it really about?

If you’ve been a member of the UFT for any length of time, you’re no stranger to appeals to fear. Whenever anyone opposes someone from UFT Unity, they’re scary. It doesn’t matter how long or how much Unity has screwed up everything. This is a new person! How can you trust her? She’s a socialist! Or whatever.

Mulgrew just sent us an email stating that Memorial Sloan Kettering may soon be out of network. That’s certainly scary. Having had cancer, I’m really scared of it. Regardless, Mulgrew’s email scared most who read it, even if those not of Medicare age have so much more to lose.

Costs keep going up. Pretty much everything does, even as city contracts fail to keep up. We can argue over why. You can blame politicians. (Like me, you’ll probably choose to blame the ones you don’t like.) You can blame corporations for price-gouging. I’m not an economist, but we can all see and feel inflation.

When MSK wants a new contract with Anthem, it should surprise no one that they want more money. It certainly shouldn’t surprise Anthem. It shouldn’t surprise the geniuses on the Municipal Labor Committee either (the most familiar being UFT Boss Michael Mulgrew).

One of the things that surprised me in Mulgrew’s letter was that he stressed the importance of coming to an agreement. It seems like bad negotiation. Once MSK sees that Mulgrew values the agreement, the cost could go up. Of course, it could simply be that Mulgrew had no choice but to tell the truth in this situation. I mean, everyone, even Mike Mulgrew, has to tell the truth sometimes.

Certainly it’s disgraceful that MSK would not bend over backwards to support NYC workers. MSK is based in NYC, and avails itself pretty freely of the services we provide. To deny teachers, cops, firefighters and all other city employees coverage at their moment of extreme need is unconscionable.

Still, unlike most developed nations, we have this privatized health care system. Medical care is a commodity in the United States of America, and if you aren’t willing to pay for a commodity, you aren’t going to get it. Personally, I think that’s disgraceful. Medical care should be a human right. It’s not remotely the same thing as, say, a car.

I drive a Honda. I can’t afford to drive a Mercedes. I don’t much care. However, if I have cancer, I don’t want to haggle over price. I don’t want to decide I want to save a few bucks with this care as opposed that care. That’s the corner that MSK, Anthem, and MLC are painting us into.

But, and bear with me a moment, what if some parties actually want us to be here? Could it me that MLC, along with Mulgrew’s “very smart people” are restricting negotiations? Offer only this much, and not that much?

Why on earth would they do such a thing?

Well, Mulgrew is kind of in a bind. He agreed to major health givebacks, and along with the Municipal Labor Committee, is on the hook to produce them. In 2018, Mulgrew went and negotiated a deal to place retirees into an inferior health plan in exchange for a three year contract around cost of living. (Who care if the retirees, who are paying for the raises, don’t actually receive them?) Though the courts have thus far blocked it, he and his BFFs have promised 600 million a year of savings, forever.

Also, MLC agreed on a new, cheaper plan for rank and file. Eric Adams wants money, and our union leaders have worked to get it for him (as opposed to us).

So how do they get their money? It’s a little tougher than it was before the retiree election.

Once Retiree Advocate kicked the asses of Mulgrew and his “very smart people,” he needed to pay valuable lip service to the notion he now opposes dumping us into an Advantage plan. The thing is, though, he doesn’t really trash the Aetna plan. He just says the city is being unreasonable.

He, as usual, is blameless. Never mind he personally initiated this entire situation. So here’s my question—would Michael Mulgrew push this issue simply so he can solve it and be a big hero? There’s no question in my mind that he would. But would he push this so as to solve it by providing an inferior plan that has MSK in contract?

Will Mulgrew, continuing to disregard the fact that Medicare covers all hospitals, be out telling retirees that Aetna has a contract with MSK, even though it’s subject to expiration, as are all such contracts? Will he be out telling in-service members and non-Medicare eligible retirees that he has a brand new plan with MSK under contract?

Will he expect everyone to then ignore raised co-pays, tiered care, and whatever other disadvantages come along with said plan?

I can’t say for sure. But honestly, given the years of misinformation and outright falsehoods regarding new health plans, it would not surprise me in the least.