Retirees Win! – For-Profit Mulgrewcare Plan Quashed Again
The NYC Organization of Public Service Retirees has officially won its lawsuit against the City, preventing Adams, Mulgrew, and the MLC from forcing medicare-eligible retirees off of GHI Seniorcare and onto a for-profit Medicare Advantage plan (MAP) run by Aetna. The decision is brief, essentially just referencing that the TRO/Injunction that I reported on earlier this summer still stands based on the language in that earlier filing. To quote Lyle Frank: ” ORDERED that the Respondents are permanently enjoined from requiring any City retirees, and their dependents from being removed from their current health insurance plan(s), and from being required to either enroll in an Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan or seek their own health coverage.”
Congratulations, retirees. While the City of course will appeal, this news is good and bodes well for the future of retired members – as well as future retired members. In the mean time, in-service members, be vigilant and look out for the City/MLC, who may now look for new ways to push the ‘savings,’ which they were trying to make on the backs of retirees, onto us in the form of increased copays, reduced coverage, new premiums, or new insurance plans altogether. If that happens, in-service members must fight, as the retirees did, and make sure that doesn’t happen.
7 Comments
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BaconUFT
Yes, I think the way to look at it is we can’t expect anyone will fight ‘for’ us – only ourselves. That’s the trouble with fights in which our own union leadership opposes the best interests of membership. We would need all hands on deck.
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Bennett Fischer
Retirees will support you!
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akgreenberg
Thank goodness! I don’t like being pushed into a corner by Mulgrew and the mayor. Now Mr. Mulgrew should work on improving our dental plan; for us and the dentists who participate. We are losing dentists and specialists by the score.
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BaconUFT
Yes, and the dentists who do take our dental insurance often have to bill for things not covered. We don’t cover many things that have become mainstream components of routine procedures. I’ve left with bills the size of my paycheck for ‘covered’ services that can’t be done in the flimsy way our schedule otherwise dictated.
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Art Greenberg
I agree. I need a crown, and Cigna only pays for one part of the crown. Can you believe that? I have to pay $1200.00 for the other part!
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Mike D.
This is great news for the retirees! As for us, if Mulgrew tries to push us into the same kind of plan, who will fight for us? Would we have to fund a class action lawsuit against our own union and the city to avoid being pushed into an inferior plan to what we currently have?