‘UFT, DC37 Have to Stop F#@king With Our Healthcare’
New York City High School teacher Kate Connors jeers union leaders for pushing profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance plans and blocking the New York Health Act Photos/Joe Maniscalco
By Joe Maniscalco
“UFT, DC37 have to stop f——-g with our healthcare…stop selling out our retirees…stop f——-g over actives.”
A couple of weeks ago, a group of New York City municipal retirees fighting the City of New York’s ongoing campaign to strip them of their existing Medicare benefits and push them into a profit-driven “Medicare Dis-Advantage” plan took to the streets of Manhattan to denounce the scheme and to advocate passage of the New York Health Act.
As Steve Auerbach, retired epidemiologist and member of Physicians for a National Health Program, pointed out—the New York Health Act seeks to provide everyone with guaranteed healthcare while at the same time increasing the take-home pay of 92 percent of New Yorkers.
“But of course,” he added at a Communities Together: NY Social Justice & Music Fest held along West 30th Street on September 14— “the powers that be say we can’t have that.”
Kate Connors, a New York City High School teacher and member of Labor for New York Health, apologized for her salty language in calling out those union leaders with a history of pushing profit-driven healthcare and blocking the New York Health Act.
But that kind of rank & file anger is common when talking about the curious—and many would say outrageous—situation where labor leaders are all in on privatization—while also being opposed to removing the heavy burden of negotiating healthcare costs from the bargaining table.
“We know that we need to pass the New Health Act,” Connors continued. “But many labor unions do not want us to pass the New York Health Act for their own selfish reasons.”
Auerbach called the New York Health Act a “boost” for workers and unions—and highlighted assessments indicating the measure could ultimately save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars in healthcare costs if enacted.
“Let’s get healthcare negotiations off the negotiation table so we’re not constantly fighting new requirements having to give givebacks and pitting retirees against current workers,” Auerbach said. “No, we don’t need to that. Let the unions negotiate for better pay, better retirement benefits, better everything else—and have universal healthcare for everybody.”
Steve Auerbach, retired epidemiologist and member of Physicians for a National Health Program says passage of the New York Health Act could set the standard for the rest of the nation.
The UFT Delegate Assembly backed passage of the New York Health Act in 2015, and then again in 2017. Since then, however, the union and President Michael Mulgrew have challenged the bid for universal healthcare.
”Over these years we have also sacrificed wage increases to advance quality of care and maintain the current cost structure. Workers have already ‘paid’ for their benefits,” the UFT has gone on record stating.
“You are harming people because you want to bargain with our insurance as a healthcare chip,” Connors observed.
Mulgrew and the UFT were, of course, also strongly behind the campaign to push 250,000 New York City municipal retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan by Aetna—something embattled Mayor Eric Adams is still trying to force in the courts.
But in June, union retirees fighting to retain their existing Medicare benefits crushed the Mulgrew-aligned Unity Caucus and seized control of the UFT Retired Teachers Chapter [RTC] in a pivotal election.
Mulgrew officially pulled the plug on UFT support for the profit-driven Medicare Advantage push soon after—but continues to insist claims by retirees that the scheme represents a diminishment of existing Medicare benefits are “patently false.”
Sarah Shapiro—one of the retired UFT teachers instrumental in achieving that upset victory in June—told festival-goers their work isn’t quite yet done.
“Next, we have to kick [Michael Mulgrew] the hell out of his position in the UFT,” she said. “We are working with in-service folks and lots of groups in New York City and nationally. This ‘Medicare Dis-Advantage’ plan that they are throwing so many elderly people into is a big ripoff—and we oppose it on a nationwide level. We are also focused on passing the New York Health Act, which will cover all people in New York State—it’s for everybody.”
Evie Jones-Rich calls out New York City Mayor Eric Adams and union leaders "in bed" with the health insurance industry.
According to Auerbach, our current profit-driven healthcare system is thoroughly “facocked”—having resulted in the closure of more than 160 hospitals nationwide between 2015 and 2020.
“Our financing system is completely screwed up and it effects mostly, of course, poor people,” he added.
New Yorkers saw nearly 20 hospitals disappear from 2000 to 2013, according to Auerbach. Threats to Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan and SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn also linger. Already in Queens, the cuts have translated into just 1.6 hospital beds per 1,0000 residents.
Emergency response times, meanwhile, are now averaging over 10 minutes in the Big Apple. And only one in five heart attack victims is surviving the ordeal.
A UFT spokesperson told Work-Bites that the union continues to support a “national approach to Medicare for All.”
“At the state level, the New York Health Act must provide the same high-quality healthcare our members currently have as well as be financially sustainable,” they said in an email. “So far, it is not clear how both goals will be achieved, and so we will continue to meet with the bill sponsors.”
Work-Bites also reached out to DC37 and Executive Director Henry Garrido to learn the union’s views on the New York Health Act and the ongoing Medicare Advantage push —but we have yet to receive a response.
“I love unions,” 91-year-old municipal retiree Evie Jones Rich told festival-attendees. “But DC37, the UFT, the Teamsters—they are not doing their jobs. They have lost their mission and their vision. Their job is to defend working people like us. What are [union leaders] doing making $300,000 a year—each one of them taking away our healthcare and giving it to Aetna—a private, profit-making corporation that last year made $6 billion? Six billion dollars denying and delaying care that we need and are entitled to—and we’re gonna get!”
Jones-Rich—a strong and vociferous presence at street actions opposing the City of New York’s Medicare Advantage push over the last three years—further lambasted union leaders backing the Medicare Advantage campaign and opposing the New York Health Act for being far too cozy with the profit-driven healthcare industry.
“The union [leaders], in my view, are in bed with the insurance companies,” she said. “They have built up a bureaucracy and they want to keep their jobs. But I want right and justice—I want my healthcare.”
Opponents of the City of New York’s ongoing Medicare Advantage push are set for a massive rally outside City Hall on September 30. Work-Bites will have more details and full coverage of the action.