facebook Twitter Like Gmail By Joe Maniscalco February 18, 2024  Work-Bites   Former New York City schoolteachers instrumental in beating back the ongoing campaign to push 250,000 municipal retirees into a profit-driven Medicare Advantage health insurance program have launched a bold new campaign to seize control of the UFT’s Retired Teachers Chapter — and put […]

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2028473

Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Cancer Survivor and Retiree Advocate/UFT member Sheila Zukowsky said she celebrated the day she turned 65 because it meant she could finally start claiming her traditional Medicare benefits.

“I didn’t like turning 65 — but I could finally go to the hospital that was around the corner from my house where everybody took my healthcare,” Zukowsky said. “There was no longer a problem — I got great treatment and I’m here to today. There’s no way they’re gonna take away our Medicare. No matter what they do — we’re gonna fight like hell against them.”

The private health insurance industry’s hard sell — with it promises of reduced up front costs, dental coverage, gym memberships and the like — has resulted in more than half of all Medicare eligible recipients in the country now being enrolled in a profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan.

Many of those recipients, however, now regret being taken in by the Medicare Advantage sales pitch — and feel trapped.

Even Mayor Adams jeered Medicare Advantage as a “bait and switch” before winning election and doing an abrupt about-face after taking office.

A great many Medicare eligible recipients also do not even realize that a privatized, profit-driven Medicare Advantage plan is not Medicare — something that privatization advocates are loath to admit.

The Save Medicare Act, reintroduced in the House last year, seeks to prohibit giant insurance companies from advertising their profit-driven plans as “Medicare.”

“Michael Mulgrew keeps saying Medicare Advantage is just Medicare Part C — that’s an absolute lie,” Retiree Advocate/UFT member Norm Scott said on Friday. “We know the difference. I’ve been on Medicare for 14 years — I love it. I’ve had no problems.”

Retiree Advocate/UFT member Sarah Shapiro said, “It’s difficult when you know the city is fighting against you,” but that “it’s really difficult when you know the people in our union leadership are fighting against the rank & file — and the retirees.”

Fellow Retiree Advocate/UFT member Bobby Greenberg’s work on national labor campaigns with the American Federation of Teachers goes back a half century. What’s needed, and what Retiree Advocate/UFT promises, he said is a return to authentic union culture centered on empowering the membership

“[Mulgrew] said this is the best plan we can get — he still says that. That plan died — it was killed by us,” Greenberg said. “We’re winning because the guns have shifted from us — to the working teachers. Now, it’s their healthcare being attacked…what we need is a different culture. We need a culture that welcomes the members.”

Retiree Advocate/UFT Jonathan Halabi said the Retired Teachers Chapter had two critical jobs to do under Mulgrew and Murphy’s watch: protect pensions and healthcare. But they have failed at both.

“Medicare Advantage, Aetna, Alliance — that’s not protecting our healthcare,” Halal said. “That’s Mulgrew, Murphy, Mayor Adams, and the MLC endangering our healthcare…who knows what they have in store four our pensions? Reitrees will vote for the team that will protect our healthcare and our pensions.”

I still feel that this article from this point-of-view isn’t telling us everything and I get the feeling that it’s not simply a matter of the typical “rank-and-file versus corrupt union leadership” story, but we’ll see.

I haven’t really seen the union leaders quoted here.

But I could be wrong; I just feel that the article isn’t really giving us the full story.