Listen: Did Michael Mulgrew Just Admit He Screwed Up Retiree Healthcare?
UFT President Michael Mulgrew appeared on the April 28 edition of WBAI’s “What’s Going On?” radio show.
By Joe Maniscalco
UFT President Micheal Mulgrew’s appearance on the latest episode of WBAI’s “What’s Going On?” show might be the closest he’s come to conceding he screwed up when deciding to back the plan to push 250,000 New York City municipal retirees and their families into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance plan.
“You might have had a good thought, you had a good idea—but if people don't understand it, and people are getting anxious and frustrated and angry, you move away from it,” he told WBAI “What’s Going On?” host Bob Hennelly on Monday, April 28.
Mulgrew, of course, is attempting to win re-election to the post he first assumed way back in 2009—more than 15 years ago. At one point in the fascinating and often perplexing exchange on Monday, Mulgrew also acknowledged what a “good city job” has always meant to working class families in New York City.
“My mother said if you're a public sector worker, the deal is that you're supposed to have good benefits in a retirement…that's what we're supposed to have. And that's what I still believe,” he said.
But at another point he also said former Mayor Bill de Blasio “did a really good thing” when he floated the idea of blowing up what a “good city job” has always meant to New York City working class families and force everyone into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.
“The whole idea was because the retirees medical piece had jumped half a billion dollars over a short period of time, and the city, of course…the city rightfully said we can't absorb these costs,” Mulgrew claimed.
Ultimately, Mulgrew talked about how his members made it clear “We don’t want this,” and so he reversed course on the Medicare Advantage push. But did he actually admit it was always a horrible idea?
Nope. Instead he said, “They [retirees] thought they were going into the regular Medicare programs, which they were not. But that didn't matter. When you see that that level of anxiety and fear is out there, you move. You change. That’s your job as a leader.”
“He caused a reaction alright but it wasn’t anxiety and fear,” New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees,” later told Work-Bites. “Because we knew what he was doing to us. And he didn’t. We had a sense of betrayal that he could change our healthcare and sell us off to the city to use the value for his purpose. He was privatizing Medicare and forcing us into the plan wanted us in. A free plan to the city that was inferior to traditional Medicare.”
Listen to the the entire episode below: