If the UFT Secretary and Staff Director is on the board of the Medicare Rights Center, what went so wrong?
Mulgrew's henchman, LeRoy Barr, sits on the board of the Medical Rights Center that advocates for traditional Medicare over much-maligned, controversial Medicare Advantage. But ... -- By Kate Connors
The UFT Secretary and Staff Director is Mulgrew’s right hand man. He has a massive influence within the UFT and is a Unity diehard. He also is on the Board of Directors at the Medicare Rights Center. The MRC has a lot to say about Medicare Advantage and it isn’t pretty. If you look under the Policy Work Section of their website, they list MA as a “hot topic” and describe it as follows:
“People who choose Medicare Advantage (MA) face additional hurdles during the initial enrollment and annual plan selection processes. The MA plan choice landscape is cluttered, complicated, and confusing. Other MA features, like prior authorization, narrow provider networks, and predatory plan marketing, can worsen decision-making and access problems”.
They also published an article on their website titled Medicare Rights Urges CMS to Increase Medicare Advantage Transparency and Accountability. They go on to describe the impact of lack of transparency
“As a result, harmful plan practices—such as inappropriate denials, utilization management misuse, aggressive marketing, favorable selection and other gaming—can continue unabated, worsening health care access, outcomes, and disparities”
Nowhere on their website does it suggest that we should just negotiate better MA plans, like the UFT assured us they would. They advocate for more government oversight while admitting this isn’t a complete solution to the MA problem.
“From our perspective, it is evident that MA enrollment and costs are surging, that access issues abound, and that transparency is lacking. To ensure MA works well for those it is supposed to serve, in our comments we urged CMS to immediately and thoroughly collect and publish critical data elements.
While some of the information we request may be actionable for people with Medicare, we caution that CMS must neither expect the market to self-eradicate bad actors, nor overly rely on beneficiary reporting to ensure plan compliance. Instead, CMS-required data must form the basis of enhanced enforcement of Medicare’s statutes and regulations and be used to drive future policy improvements program-wide”.
So, why does the UFT Secretary serve on this Board of Directors at the Medicare Rights Center which greatly criticizes MA turn around and then speak highly of MA in UFT spaces?
Is it because UFT was going to build us a unique and customized MA plan for members that would make the MRC critiques of MA null?
As MRC points out, that really isn’t possible.
It is because of Unity’s preferred method of contract bargaining. Concessionary bargaining.
They trade wages for healthcare and vice versa. UFT does not know how to bargain without these transactional backroom dealings. They do it in the dark. They tell you that a negotiation committee composed of several hundred UFT members assists in negotiations. However, no one on the negotiation committee is privy to these deals as they happen and that is how we were massively screwed over in the 2018 contract. I have deep appreciation for the retirees and actives who fought like hell to save members from MA, but the fight isn't over until we pass the New York Health Act and remove the private insurance companies from the game.
I hope in the next election we see Mulgrew and company replaced with leadership that supports the New York Health Act and is unwilling to continue to trade wages for healthcare. I also hope new leadership conducts open bargaining which has proven successful on many levels of contract bargaining. No more NDAs, no more backroom deals between the UFT and the City.
We need new leadership who can negotiate strong contracts. Cast your ballot next year and no matter what, don’t fill in the little circle for Unity.
Kate Connors is a high school teacher in Queens. She is a UFT chapter delegate and sits on the MORE-UFT Health Justice Working Group.
Editor’s Note: Here is one video from the MRC that speaks to the multitude of problems with Medicare Advantage.
Also, read more about how Mulgrew’s and Barr’s Unity administrative-bureaucratic caucus sold out City workers and retirees with their 2014 and 2018 healthcare “cost-savings’ deals. It is these deals that led to thousands of city retirees being forced into predatory, inferior and privatized Medicare Advantage. Currently, their giveback plan has been thwarted in the courts.
Please never mind the double-post of right-wing doublespeak here in the comments section from Peter Goodman, a sycophant of Michael Mulgrew and Unity Caucus. The reality is that NYHA has a carveout for public labor unions which requires the employer to cover a minimum 80% of the payroll tax breakdown. A larger percentage, up to 100%, is subject to collective bargaining. In addition to providing healthcare for all New Yorkers, NYHA will save money for at least 90% of all New Yorkers. NYHA is supported by some of New York’s largest labor unions, including 1199 SEIU, the New York State Nurses Association, Communications Workers of America, and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. The UFT Delegate Assembly, the highest decision-making body of the UFT, resolved in May 2015 that, “The United Federation of Teachers strongly supports the New York Health Act as a way to improve public health, boost the state’s economy and ensure that the basic right of quality health care is enjoyed by all New Yorkers… The UFT will work toward passage of this important legislation.” Instead of meeting and working with the sponsors of the NYHA bill to resolve any outstanding concerns, Michael Mulgrew unilaterally defies the will of the UFT Delegate Assembly, and by extension, the will of dues-paying rank-and-file UFT members. Michael Mulgrew and his Unity Caucus enablers are unfit for office, and UFT members will vote them out in May 2025. You can learn more about the New York Health Act by reading the independent studies conducted by the Rand Corporation and UMASS, or by clicking on either of these links:
nyhcampaign.org. www.nysenate.gov/sites/default/files/article/attachment/5024_jackson_nyha_brochure.pdf
The N.Y. Health Act proposed was introduced in 1992 and has gone through many iterations. The current bill created a Medicare for All system, cost unknown, however substantial. The bill will be funded by a progressive Health Tax. The tax and all other provisions will be determined by a board appointed by the governor and the legislative AFTER the bill becomes a law.
Unions across the state have asked for an opt out trigger if the law reduces benefits, the sponsors have rejected the request,
I recommend two prior provisions,
1. An alghorym to determine cost for individual members, punch in age, gender, family size and annual salary and receive an estimated cost, the sponsors rejected the request, all decisions must be made by the appointed board after passage, and,
2, A dispute resolution system, perhaps arbitration if the bill ignored “promises,” also, rejected by sponsors,
Do you jump into a pool w/o knowing the depth of the water?
When the powerful say “trust use” beware