City Tries to Reimpose Copays on Retirees – Who is Fighting Back?
What’s there to say about copays? I don’t like ’em.
I pay them. They went up and up while I was still working. And they are still here in retirement… because… I am not a Medicare retiree. I get stuck with the same copays as in-service members. Which sucks. There are a lot of them. And they all went up, and up, and up, in the last 2, 5, 10 years. Copays every time I go to any appointment, with very few exceptions. Of course I do pay them… my health care is still good, and mostly covered. But these copays add up to a hidden premium. Hundreds of dollars each year (yes, I know, premiums can be much more).
But if I were a Medicare retiree…
Medicare retirees have no copays. They didn’t used to. But in between something happened.
The City, New York City, the Office of Labor Relations… tried to impose copays on Medicare Retirees. They did. Retirees, Medicare retirees, had to pay copays. They were furious, but of course they paid every time they went to the doctor. And the New York Organization went to court – and the judge found what we thought – the City is not allowed to imposed copays on medicare retirees.
I keep typing “medicare retirees” or “Medicare Retirees” and what that really means is retirees who are 65 and over, who are on medicare. I am a “Non-Medicare Retiree” – a relative youth…
So the judge found that the City was wrong to impose copays, and retirees have struggled to stop paying them since some doctors did not get the message right away, and I know that retirees are due refunds, but honestly, since they are Medicare retirees (and I am not one) I don’t know if they have gotten the money back yet. Their money. Money they deserve. Money the City had them pay, in violation of the law.
So here we are, the ruling is clear, things are straightened out, or getting straightened out. And what happens next? The City appeals. In November 2023. Just a few days ago. The City wants to reimpose copays on our Medicare retirees. And I assume they want to stop copays from being refunded. And presumably they want to bill retirees for copays they have not paid, for service they already received.
OLR Commits Broad Daylight Robbery – How do we respond?
Horrible. The City going to court to rob its own retirees.
Me – I’m getting the word out that this is happening. I can’t do much, but this part I can do.
My union – the UFT….
It happens, the plate slips out of your fingers, you watch it spin and turn, and know what’s about to happen, but still imagine it somehow landing – somehow landing smoothly, intact, not spilling – and then a millisecond later it hits the floor, shatters, and the contents splatter everywhere.
My union – the UFT… I could imagine publicly objecting to the City’s appeal, publicly standing up for retirees, insisting on “No Copays,” filing a friend of the court brief against the City, using those overpriced lawyers FOR the members instead of using those overpriced lawyers AGAINST us… I can imagine for a millisecond.
But sadly, I know. I expect nothing of the sort. I expect Mulgrew and Murphy and the Unity leadership to sit silently on the side, watching the OLR rob our Medicare Retirees, hoping our retirees lose, and are forced to cough up those copays. And when we question why they did nothing – they will claim it was all the City that did this – and try to hide their complicity.
JD2718 
Oh, Michael Mulgrew and Tom Murphy are complicit alright. They aren’t merely passive bystanders to the city’s appeal. They are active participants in Emblem’s copay plan. It was one of the ways they thought they could put Medicare Advantage over on us retirees.
I first heard about these copays from Michael Mulgrew himself, at an RTC Healthcare Committee meeting in July of 2021 at the UFT Brooklyn borough office. I am on the RTC Healthcare Committee and this meeting was just a few months after UFT retirees had learned about Mulgrew’s plan to force us into what was then the Emblem-Anthem Medicare Advantage Plus Plan (MAPP). Retirees weren’t supposed to find out about the MAPP, but we did find out, and the formation of a retiree healthcare committee was part of Mulgrew’s too-little-too-late attempt at damage control.
When the committee met that July, Mulgrew’s smug lapdog lawyer Alan Klinger, RTC Chapter Leader Tom Murphy, and the CEOs of Emblem Health and Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield were all there. Mulgrew opened the meeting with a bullshit spiel about how great the MAPP was going to be. Not only would it be better than traditional Medicare but it would be better than sex! And it would be futile for retirees to resist the change. Why? Because we would be charged premiums for staying in GHI Senior Care – AND – beginning in 2022 we would be charged copays by Emblem for ALL of our medical services and doctor visits.
Instead of saying he was outraged at Emblem’s copay scheme, Mulgrew said his hands were tied. There was nothing he could do about it. Instead of saying he would fight for UFT members against the illegal copays, he used the copay threat as a cudgel to beat us into accepting the MAPP. His argument was, why would anyone be foolish enough to opt out of the MAPP if they knew they would be hit with financial punishments for doing so?
Had Mulgrew’s crack legal team from (the now defunct) Stroock & Stroock failed to advise him that the copay plan was a violation of city law? Had they failed to advise him that the copay scheme was a breach of Emblem’s contract with the city? Or, had they told him but he just didn’t care? Either way, Michael Mulgrew has no interest in fighting for UFT members. He is fighting for the city and the big insurance companies, not for us. He is fighting for copays in order to save his horrific 2014 and 2018 agreements with the city. Agreements which bankrupted the Healthcare Stabilization Fund, and which he now wants to pay back by selling off retiree health benefits, and by slashing in-service benefits by 10%.
There are some organizations that are fighting for UFT members, but Mulgrew’s Unity caucus isn’t one of them. It is Marianne Pizzatola’s NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees, and Retiree Advocate/UFT. Fortunately, UFT retirees will have a chance to oust Mulgrew’s Unity candidate – whoever that may be – in the upcoming spring RTC chapter election. A vote for Retiree Advocate, will be a vote for preservation of our health benefits.
Mulgrew and Murphy? They’re far from innocent bystanders. They’re two of the crooks.