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By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, UFT President Michael Mulgrew talks about his decision to pull UFT support from the ongoing scheme to push 250,000 New York City municipal retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan, as well as “current healthcare negotiations for in-service and pre-Medicare retirees.”

The bombshell news came in the form of a letter the UFT head sent last weekend to Harry Nespoli, chair of the Municipal Labor Committee [MLC] and president of the Sanitation union representing “New York’s Strongest.”

Mulgrew was dealt a stunning defeat just prior to that when members of his United Caucus, which supported the Medicare Advantage strategy the UFT  promoted, were soundly defeated in a leadership election for the UFT’s Retired Teachers Chapter. They were defeated by the Retiree Advocate slate—a group expressly created to shut down the shift to a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance plan.

Proponents of the plan tout a supposed $600 million dollar annual savings which they say could help the city maintain premium-free health care for active, or in-service members.

Opponents, backed up by extensive reporting, say the premium-free sales pitch is meaningless when Medicare Advantage’s narrowed networks, prior authorizations and outright denials of care threaten patient health.

Resistance to the proposed shift sprang up almost immediately back during Mayor de Blasio’s tenure, sparking the formation of the New York City Organization of Public Service Retirees, a racially and economically diverse coalition of retirees and supporters with tens of thousands of members who keep beating the city in court. In case after case, the courts have decided in the retirees’ favor—ruling that New York City’s past commitments to its retirees as active employees is still binding.

In the second half of this week’s show, Drs. Simonetta Sambataro and Roona Ray from the Doctor’s Council SEIU, talk about how a staffing, retention, and recruiting crisis is coinciding with a 20-percent spike in emergency room visits and admissions across New York City’s Health + Hospitals Corporation system. 

The municipal network of 11 acute care hospitals and 30 Gotham health centers is the largest in the nation, and provides healthcare to all who need it no matter their immigration or economic status—in essence, a form of municipal universal healthcare. The Doctor’s Council represents thousands of physicians working inside the system.

The Doctor’s Council saw its contract expire last year. A strike by at least 2,000 of the physicians who care for H+H patients is not subject to New York State’s Taylor Law—and is possible because they are actually affiliated with entities including the Physician Affiliate Group of New York and Mount Sinai.

Listen to the entire show below: