Premium Free? Not if You're Retired
(And the mayoral race)
Yesterday I spent an hour scanning doctor bills and receipts to send to SHIP. Although Unity created the Mulgrew Tax, which means at least 15 bucks per doctor visit, in an election stunt, they tried to mitigate it. They agreed to refund up to seven Mulgrew Taxes if you’re enrolled in SHIP.
My scanning task was somewhat eased by the fact that two of the bills I got were double—not 15 but 30 bucks. Of course, while that may save scanning time, it also means I paid twice what Unity promised I would when selling this scam. I hear from a lot of retired friends that they’re getting hit with multiple co-pays per visit. Oddly, this particular phenomenon seems to have become more widespread post-election. Go figure.
Will my submission be accepted? I hear a lot of people are having theirs returned. Is it more practical to get a part time job and earn the 105 bucks that Unity stole from us? Only time will tell.
Yesterday someone sent me a Unity-happy-talk Instagram boasting of how our coverage is premium free. It’s important to point out that this claim is nonsense. If couples pay 300 dollars per month for pharmacy insurance, that’s 3600 bucks a year in premiums. If I, as the member, get 900 back, and my wife, as non-member, gets nothing, that’s 2700. That’s a pretty hefty premium right there.
Do other Americans have it worse? Certainly. Is that a justification for Unity working to break the promise the city made to us decades ago? Does it rationalize their selling us out for sub-inflationary contracts from which we benefit not at all? Absolutely not.
That’s not to mention the fact that the insurance we get is way inferior to the actual premium-free plan we had in-service. Instead of paying 30 bucks per prescription, I often find myself paying hundreds. As of now, that’s capped at 2,000 a year. So a couple could pay up to $6700 a year in premiums. That’s not chicken-feed. I have a friend, contemplating retirement, who tells me that premium fee is out of the question. Thus, no retirement.
On top of that, Unity wanted to charge us $200 each per month, to start, to retain our health insurance. That would be an extra 4800 per couple, bringing our grand total to 11,500. That is a big bite out of your pension. It’s particularly egregious for lower-paid workers. I’m thinking DC37 workers and the UFT paraprofessionals to whom Unity has been paying such grand lip service lately.
Unity paraded a bunch of people in front of the City Council to say that we needed this option, because some members needed Medicare. There were a few retired UFT VPs, a cancer patient, and some UFT patronage member or other. I can’t stress enough, as a cancer survivor, that if some members need real Medicare, all members need real Medicare. You just never know.
An oncologist I know told me that it was worth paying whatever you had to in order to retain real Medicare. She said sometimes patients needed chemo right now, and that waiting for approval placed her patients in real danger. That’s just one danger. The other, of course, is that a whole lot of NYC retirees would not have been able to afford to retain real Medicare.
How does Michael Mulgrew not know that? How does the Unity Patronage Cult not care about that?
In fact, when Mulgrew was all gung-ho on this stuff, he sent out an email to in-service workers, and I was one at the time. It basically said if we don’t sell out the retirees, we’d all pay $1500 each in premiums. Supposedly, retirees are UFT members. This was, therefore, pitting one faction of the union against another. This is totally antithetical to everything I know about union, but that didn’t phase Unity at all.
On the Mayoral Race
We’re now in an odd place. I see vehement opinions about the mayoral race and its implications for us. Here’s one thing we may agree on—the UFT endorsement process is anything but democratic. When a large percentage of Delegate Assembly voters have agreed, in writing, to support caucus rather than membership, you have no way of knowing what votes really mean.
ABC believes we need to survey members to decide on whom we endorse. Even Mulgrew admits fewer than 2% of members answered his survey. Retirees, according to him, did not support Mamdani, but evidently our voices mean nothing to him. That’s not news, of course, as anyone who attended Unity-run RTC meetings could attest.
And, of course, 72% of membership at large couldn’t be bothered to vote in the UFT election. This is by design, and that’s absolutely why Unity is loath to allow us to vote online, even though we do so for SBOs and other unions make it an election option.
I’ve got my personal beliefs, of course, and surely you do as well. It makes me sad that so many of us cannot respectfully disagree. That’s the political climate we’re in nowadays—thoroughly toxic. I’m really upset by those who toss the word socialism around as though it’s an epithet. I wouldn’t vote for people who do that.
Here’s a famous quote from Harry Truman:
Socialism is a scare word they have hurled at every advance the people have made in the last 20 years.
Socialism is what they called public power. Socialism is what they called social security.
Socialism is what they called farm price supports.
Socialism is what they called bank deposit insurance.
Socialism is what they called the growth of free and independent labor organizations.
Socialism is their name for almost anything that helps all the people.
When the Republican candidate inscribes the slogan "Down With Socialism" on the banner of his "great crusade," that is really not what he means at all.
What he really means is "Down with Progress--down with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal," and "down with Harry Truman's fair Deal." That's all he means.
For the record, it’s what they called Medicare and Medicaid as well. There are, of course, other things that get called socialism. Universal health care. Universal child care. A living wage. Free public college. Clean air and water, for goodness sake. There are many who oppose these things. I support them.
Does that make me a socialist? If so, I’m guilty. But it’s a loser of a label in these United States, and that’s why they try to scare you with it. Unity once sent out a mailing saying vote for Randi Weingarten because her opponent is a socialist. What would that have meant in terms of union leadership?
I was interviewed by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last week. It just came out, and while I’m quoted accurately, I had a lot more to say. For those of you already emailing me, I also said my prime reservation about Mamdani was that he did not agree to support 1096. As a state senator, he supported the state version right up until he did not. I’m very sad to say.
I don’t believe Mamdani is antisemitic. I don’t believe questioning Israeli policy means you’re antisemitic. I don’t believe questioning American policy makes you anti-American. I think patriotism, loving your country, means you want to improve it. It means you want to make it a better place for those who live there.
I’m upset that Mamdani, evidently, made a deal with Garrido and/ or Mulgrew to pull support for the state equivalent of 1096. DC37, in fact, withdrew support of candidates who supported 1096. One thing we can agree upon about Mamdani is this—he’s a politician. I can only suppose he or his staff calculated that support of union leadership is more important than support of NYC Retirees.
There’s no way I’d vote for Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams, or Curtis Sliwa, ever. Cuomo lost me on his first gubernatorial run, when he said he’d go after unions. With Democrats like that, who needs Republicans? Then, of course, there are his ties to the Moskowitz Academies. I thought of him every time I had a Danielson observation.
I live in Long Island, so I won’t be voting in this mayoral election. If I were, I’d vote for Mamdani over his opponents. You’re free to disagree. That said, I understand Mamdani says he opposes Medicare Advantage. However, that’s the same thing Mulgrew says. It’s really not enough. Were I voting on that one issue, and that issue only, I’d choose someone else.
On the big picture, though, I think he’s the best choice. I hope we finally have politicians who will work to make health care available to all Americans, to work toward my list of “socialist” ideas like free childcare, free public college, and clean air and water. I hope he’s the first of many.
That’s a big hope, of course. But we have to start somewhere.
Respectfully I must disagree with Social Security being called Socialism or associated with that particular way to govern. Social security was originally adopted in 1935 as a Social PROGRAM to help Americans to have something to live from when they reached “old age” and left their jobs. President Roosevelt signed it into law, the Social Security Act in August, 1935, which led to the creation of a social security insurance program. Later on:
as they earned enough quotas while working and contributed a designated amount from their pay checks to Social Security as a way to allow the federal government to borrow that money they would receive their money back in a government calculated amount each month. Out of that limited returned monthly income they would pay an additional sum to cover the Social Security Healthcare program which is Medicare. In addition to that retired seniors would also pay an annual deductible before their traditional Medicare healthcare would even start. This program was never part of actual political Socialism. The country was suffering after the Great Depression and this program was meant to help older folks survive. It was never “free”, we paid for it during the years we worked and still pay for our healthcare plan of traditional Medicare from every social security income we receive and are taxed on it also. This isn’t and has never been what Socialism means according to my research.
I have reached the same conclusion as you. People often ask me who I will vote for, and like you, I now identify as an Islander. When I mention that Mandami is the only realistic choice to prevent us from being forced into MA, I find that many people are resistant. I know he opposes privatization, yet some respond by saying they would accept privatization to protect Israel. It seems they are blinded by their beliefs. I know five individuals who not only left COPE but also the UFT and the Democratic Party. One of them even mentioned that they now support Trump because he supports Israel. We are in a troubling political state of mind.