I’ve spent decades fighting for New York City’s municipal workers, and let me tell you something every New Yorker should know: the city can’t function without us.
Municipal workers are the cops, firefighters, and EMTs who respond in an emergency. They are the teachers who educate your kids and the social workers and health professionals who connect people to care. They’re the sanitation workers who keep streets clean, the crews who maintain our parks, and the staff who operate our public libraries.
They are New York’s most vital organ. And right now, City Hall is trying to gut our health care.
For decades, nearly 750,000 city employees, retirees, and their families have depended on the comprehensive health care plan New York City provides.
But the city wants to dramatically change the health care coverage we rely on and push everyone into a new “self-insured” plan with zero input from the people who will live with the consequences of these changes.
Officials claim this change will save $1 billion a year. But here’s the truth: you can’t cut that much money without cutting care. The math doesn’t add up.
City leaders promise workers won’t lose anything. They even claim there will be a broader network of providers, less out of pocket costs and improved benefits. Too good to be true? It is. Every retiree who lived through the recent fight over Medicare Advantage knows better. When the city tried to force retirees onto private plans, we saw the potential consequences: smaller doctor networks, higher copays, more prior authorization hurdles, and fewer hospitals willing to take the plan.
That’s not savings, that’s just cost shifting. And it means municipal workers and their families will pay more for less. They claim that the $1 billion in savings will come from cutting payment to hospitals. Many NYC hospitals can’t afford reduced reimbursement and those that can are dealing with dramatic cuts in federal funding. What happens when the hospitals don’t agree? Do they go out of network? Does the city increase out of pocket costs?
Even worse, by “self funding” the coverage the new plan strips away the protections of New York State law, which guarantee coverage standards, state oversight and enhanced consumer rights. Under the new plan, if something goes wrong, workers and retirees won’t have the same appeal rights or oversight that they have today.
To make matters worse, they have picked UnitedHealthcare, the poster child for excessive claim denials, delays in payments, and smaller networks, to take over. Among other atrocities, UnitedHealthcare is under criminal investigation by the federal government for Medicare fraud and overbilling. While it is being portrayed as an Emblem-United partnership, make no mistake, this is a United contract and their goal will be maximizing their profits.
This new plan will be bad for municipal workers, and the way the city is handling the transition has been even worse.
There was transparency about how the decision was made and no clear explanation of how the city expects to save a billion dollars without gutting benefits. Just a backroom deal and a press release.
This isn’t the first time City Hall has tried to balance its budget on the backs of workers. And it’s not the first time New Yorkers have said “no.”
In the 1970s, workers fought against dangerous hospital conditions. Recently, retirees successfully pushed back against the forced switch to Medicare Advantage. Time and time again, when the city has tried to chip away at health care, New Yorkers have stood up and stopped it.
Why? Because we know what’s at stake. Health care isn’t just a line in a budget. It’s life and death.
If the city wants to talk about health care savings, it needs to do so in the open and with public input. It needs comptroller oversight, input from the people whose lives will be affected, and above all else, it needs to stop pretending that slashing $1 billion won’t result in less access to health care.
Changing the health care plan for 750,000 people is no small undertaking. The city plans to implement this change in the next 4 months, a dangerously tight timeline.
The city may see numbers on a balance sheet. But I see people: the sanitation worker clearing snow at 3 a.m., the teacher staying late to help a student, the EMT racing to save a life. They have earned comprehensive health care.
The city needs to honor their commitment and maintain the plan that municipal employees rely on.
Williams is a former union leader and a board member of HandsOffNYCare.
