The High Cost of Carrying Mulgrew and His Patronage Cult
Prescription costs for retirees are out of control. Rank and file, too, is in for a shock when they replace Emblem with Whatever.
Retirement is something a lot of members long for. It’s long freaked me out to see teachers 30 years younger than me approaching, saying, “Oh, you’re so lucky. You can retire.” There were a few reasons for this. Primarily, that they did not seem to perceive any advantage in being 30 years younger than I was. The other was—I really didn’t want to retire until they made me sit on Zoom during COVID.
I was surprised, though, at the sharp and costly reduction in prescription service for retirees. While I was warned, I had no idea how poorly this plan covers prescriptions. In addition, the reduction in care Michael Mulgrew and his Unity thugs wish to foist upon us is a breach of promise. We didn’t work for lower wages than our neighbors, for decades, just to have the rug pulled from us when it came time to collect our promised retirement benefits.
And there is no bottom with Mulgrew and his Unity patronage cult. Just as copays rise and rise, while contracts fail to meet inflation, benefits can diminish at any time Mulgrew or one of his thugs figures a new way to make money for Eric Adams.
There is some good news for Medicare recipients. It appears, in 2025, out-of-pocket drug costs for those of us in pharmaceutical plans will be capped at $2,000 per year. That, of course, is per person, so double that if you have a partner. Still, it beats the current limit of $8,000 per person.
Furthermore, the government will be able to negotiate some drug prices. This, of course, while insane, is less insane than their being able to negotiate no drug prices. I was pretty surprised to learn, for example, that while you could use something like GoodRX to lower the prices of certain drugs, you were prohibited from doing so if you were on a Medicare pharmacy plan. This idiotic regulation penalizes both the government and the consumer, but that’s what big pharma paid for when they bought our representatives.
While Biden is making some progress, pols of both parties are at fault. I know this because I recently signed a petition that sent letters to all my reps asking that they not support the Medicare “Advantage” that UFT Boss Mulgrew wants to shovel us into. I got responses from Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republican Anthony D’Esposito. Instead of responding to my complaint, they both sent me letters explaining what Advantage was. Obviously both support it. Schumer has taken a whole lot of pharma bucks. D’Esposito opposed lowering insulin prices and drug costs. With reps like these, who even needs Michael Mulgrew?
Closer to home, I’ve written about excessive drug prices before. I managed to snag a generic prescription at a nearby CVS for 245 bucks, which was a lot better than the 600 plus other places were charging. Now that my nearby CVS wants the higher price, I found another with the lower price, and they transferred my prescription there. Why on earth does any American, let alone someone who’s earned union benefits, have to bargain shop for pharmaceuticals? And why am I paying extra to be in a union-endorsed plan that puts me here?
Now here’s the thing. I have friends in DC37, retired and on Medicare, who DO NOT have to pay extra to join their union plan. I hear other unions don’t pay either. So we pay 125 a month, and even after reimbursement, are out over a thousand bucks per couple. That’s a lot to pay, particularly when the Mulgrew’s Welfare Fund is sitting on over 800 million dollars.
Is that fund there to help members, or is it Michael Mulgrew’s personal slush fund? We know he uses it to pay people who work there. While it’s great that they can make double what teachers do, I can see it put to better uses. Why don’t they use it to get Medicare-eligible members on the superior plan in-service members have? Why don’t they cut co-pays for in-service members?
Instead, Mulgrew and his fellow geniuses on the Municipal Labor Committee fall all over themselves trying to find money for Eric Frigging Adams. For this, they get less than nothing for us, and pat one another on the back. Mulgrew, who could not negotiate his way out of a paper bag, then bloviates at the DA about how smart our reps are.
We know Mulgrew and his cult don’t want their precious Welfare Fund gigs cut by establishing a central fund for all city workers. We know they don’t want it dismantled by the New York Health Act. I don’t know about you, but I’m paying a thousand bucks a year for NYSUT Catastrophic Health Insurance that I wouldn’t need if we had that. With the plan DC37 doesn’t pay for, that’s over two grand a year out of pocket, and that’s BEFORE we consider a. the copays Mulgrew’s cult wants to add for doctor visits, and b. the inferior care he wants Aetna to provide us.
Mulgrew’s cult opposes NYHA, twice supported by the UFT Delegate Assembly. This lets us know that actual democracy is not really a thing in our union. Mulgrew does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, and expects us to pay homage. That’s in addition to all the fees, copays, and whatever else he dreams up in his feverish fantasies of making even more money for Eric Adams.
Just for the record, it’s Mulgrew’s job to represent us, not Eric Adams. What would Eric Adams do if Mulgrew were not pillaging our Stabilization Fund, screwing retirees, and preparing to dump rank and file into a new, cheaper health plan?
I don’t know and I don’t care. Let him sell Manhattan Island. Let him ask a few gazillionaires to pay their fair share.
All we can do is vote out Mulgrew and his entire cult. If they want to make money, let them sell sneakers. Or bibles. Whatever works.
Meanwhile, chapter elections are next month. Let’s start there.
And then folks wonder why we think democracy is so crucial in the labor movement!
Norm Scott posted this today about the big decline in the stock prices for Medicare Advantage providers this week when the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced a lower reimbursement rate for MA plans for 2024 than Wall Street analysts had anticipated.
Karma, baby!
https://wendellpotter.substack.com/p/nightmare-on-wall-street-for-medicare?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2