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#Post#: 67774--------------------------------------------------
NYC Public Service Retirees and the fight against changing their
health insurance
DIR By: animaniactoo
Date: January 28, 2022, 9:47 am
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://www.nycretirees.org/
TL:DR - the city has been trying to switch the current Medicare
health insurance for public service retirees (teachers,
firefighters, cops, etc.) to a brand new Medicare Advantage Plan
which is a for profit plan rather than the current non-profit
plan.
It has been... to put it mildly... a mess. They've been botching
the implementation right and left. It's bad enough that retirees
across all these sectors are united and fighting back together -
the org in the link above was created for this purpose, and
they've won several victories in court based on how bad the
setup is.
Note: There ARE some advantages to the new plan. But a lot more
disadvantages for many. And you can opt out of going to the new
plan... but then you have to pay for staying enrolled in the old
plan. Which... isn't cheap for a retiree.
Unfortunately I get ALLLLL the updates because my godmother is a
NYC retiree and she regularly flips out and panics over this and
then I have to go check in with my dad - another NYC retiree and
figure out what is happening enough to be able to calm her down.
Current status is that a plan that was supposed to be enacted on
01/01/2022 has a TRO and can't be enacted until 04/01 minimum
because no - most of the doctors neither know about nor are
accepting the new insurance, and no - most of the
educational/informational outreach hasn't happened or when it
happens, it's an info-dump, not a place where people can ask
questions and understand what's going on, and the judge said
that no, this is not acceptable as far as transitioning the
coverage goes. (If you're really interested, you can read the
judge's rulings so far at the link above. Some of them have
been... uncomplimentary).
There is a hearing set for early Feb where the above org is
actually going to argue that the city does not have the right to
switch the coverage because the coverage they had at the time of
retirement was a contract right agreed to via CBA. Any switch
would need to be via CBA with the individual unions involved.
Previous ruling that this argument could be made and would be
heard.
It's one big old mess.
#Post#: 67775--------------------------------------------------
Re: NYC Public Service Retirees and the fight against changing
their health insurance
DIR By: animaniactoo
Date: January 28, 2022, 9:50 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Oh, and forgot to mention that the city/its lawyers keeps trying
to act as if they don't have to ACTUALLY do what the judge said
they did, or as if half-assed (and not even that well done)
efforts count as fulfillment, and one might get the impression
from reading the judge's rulings that they are really pissing
him off..
#Post#: 69215--------------------------------------------------
Re: NYC Public Service Retirees and the fight against changing
their health insurance
DIR By: animaniactoo
Date: February 1, 2022, 4:48 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Interesting stuff about this that I learned today, and a couple
of updates:
� The plan was agreed to by the individual unions and the city's
perspective is that the retirees should be filing grievances
with their unions. The unions AND the retirees agree that the
retirees are, retired, and therefore no longer active members of
the union and their former unions cannot thereby actually
represent them. As retirees they nominally belong to a different
union which was not part of the CBA.
� The city sent a letter to the judge today asking that the
hearing on Monday be a "determinative" hearing on the arguments
of the case, due to urgency to settle and enact the new plan,
and says that it is out of line for the plaintiffs to ask for a
summary hearing on an issue that they already filed a motion to
dismiss.*
� In response, the Plaintiffs sent a letter saying "Yes, they
keep trying with this last minute filing stuff and creating a
false sense of urgency. We ask that you allow our summary
hearing** to go ahead as planned on the calendar already, and
that you bind agendas for future hearings so that we can stop
with this last minute filing trying to catch us unprepared crap
stuff". Because essentially what the city is asking is that the
plaintiffs be ready to go ahead in full on Monday with oral
arguments for the hearing that is scheduled 3 weeks from now,
and then make a ruling on the merits of the case.
* Yeah, you filed a motion. Your motion is not granted, and
therefore this path is still open and proceeding, nice try.
** Over whether the plan as put forth by the city is legal at
all.
For any lawyers who are curious about the actual filings and
court correspondence:
HTML https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/DocumentList?docketId=BMh4Q5TKcmSpfW6lzB3JYg==&PageNum=3&narrow=
#Post#: 69221--------------------------------------------------
Re: NYC Public Service Retirees and the fight against changing
their health insurance
DIR By: oreally
Date: February 1, 2022, 5:00 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: animaniactoo link ---
>
>
HTML https://www.nycretirees.org/
>
> TL:DR - the city has been trying to switch the current
Medicare health insurance for public service retirees (teachers,
firefighters, cops, etc.) to a brand new Medicare Advantage Plan
which is a for profit plan rather than the current non-profit
plan.
>
> It has been... to put it mildly... a mess. They've been
botching the implementation right and left. It's bad enough that
retirees across all these sectors are united and fighting back
together - the org in the link above was created for this
purpose, and they've won several victories in court based on how
bad the setup is.
>
> Note: There ARE some advantages to the new plan. But a lot
more disadvantages for many. And you can opt out of going to the
new plan... but then you have to pay for staying enrolled in the
old plan. Which... isn't cheap for a retiree.
>
> Unfortunately I get ALLLLL the updates because my godmother is
a NYC retiree and she regularly flips out and panics over this
and then I have to go check in with my dad - another NYC retiree
and figure out what is happening enough to be able to calm her
down.
>
> Current status is that a plan that was supposed to be enacted
on 01/01/2022 has a TRO and can't be enacted until 04/01 minimum
because no - most of the doctors neither know about nor are
accepting the new insurance, and no - most of the
educational/informational outreach hasn't happened or when it
happens, it's an info-dump, not a place where people can ask
questions and understand what's going on, and the judge said
that no, this is not acceptable as far as transitioning the
coverage goes. (If you're really interested, you can read the
judge's rulings so far at the link above. Some of them have
been... uncomplimentary).
>
> There is a hearing set for early Feb where the above org is
actually going to argue that the city does not have the right to
switch the coverage because the coverage they had at the time of
retirement was a contract right agreed to via CBA. Any switch
would need to be via CBA with the individual unions involved.
Previous ruling that this argument could be made and would be
heard.
>
> It's one big old mess.
>
--- End Quote ---
I hope I remember/you remember to keep us updated. That argument
has been used often in my benefits world but nothing has ever
gone so far as an actual trial on the merits.
#Post#: 69393--------------------------------------------------
Re: NYC Public Service Retirees and the fight against changing
their health insurance
DIR By: animaniactoo
Date: February 2, 2022, 10:30 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Will do!
As of this morning, they've received notification from the judge
that he won't hear oral arguments on the issue Monday, and the
hearing will proceed as planned on Feb 23rd.
In the meantime, I really appreciate one of the leaders in the
FB group posting this today:
--- Quote ---
> Please do not give us your interpretation of the legal
filings. It is confusing to many of our members and sometimes
incorrect. We pay our lawyer to do that and he does it well.
Thank you.
--- End Quote ---
#Post#: 69406--------------------------------------------------
Re: NYC Public Service Retirees and the fight against changing
their health insurance
DIR By: whiterose
Date: February 2, 2022, 10:46 am
---------------------------------------------------------
so yet another "screw the little guy" plan...
I'm shocked, shocked, I tell ya!
#Post#: 78987--------------------------------------------------
Re: NYC Public Service Retirees and the fight against changing
their health insurance
DIR By: animaniactoo
Date: March 3, 2022, 5:49 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
There was a ruling today, and the retirees both won and lost.
They lost: The argument that coverage could not be changed to a
different plan, and that the exact level of coverage with the
exact options at the time of retirement were enshrined in their
contracts.
They won (and this is HUGE): If they are offering more than one
health care insurance/option, they are required to pay for ALL
of it, they are not allowed to offload the cost for members who
are opting out of the new plan and taking the option to keep the
old plan to the members. Considering the cost for the most
popular plan that people have previously been on was going to be
$191.00/month, this is a major major thing.
The UFT (teacher's union) officially withdrew support for the
new plan today with the judge's ruling - which included that
yes, the unions that retirees are technically no longer members
of can negotiate binding agreements via collective bargaining on
their behalf:
Here's the judge's ruling
HTML https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=B8VlDf2UgcqZXbCIV4UsKw==
My prediction from reading the order: Within 2 years, the city
will stop offering the old plans at all, because the judge left
a clear pathway to doing that and seemed to sort of imply that's
their path forward.
#Post#: 79291--------------------------------------------------
Re: NYC Public Service Retirees and the fight against changing
their health insurance
DIR By: animaniactoo
Date: March 4, 2022, 5:49 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Well that just got interesting in a hurry.
The UFT went back to the City today and said "based on the
Judge's ruling and all of the legal issues, and rollout hassles,
we think this switch to the new plan should not be implemented
on the cleared target date of 04/01". The city agreed and the
plan enrollment is on hold.
I suspect a veritable flood of retirees have opted out of the
new plan once they didn't have to pay for their old plan, ON TOP
of the flood of people who had opted out previously drove that
agreement. Because there's so much distrust of the new plan -
for good reason, doctors universally are still saying either
that they don't know about the new plan or are not accepting
that insurance plan. I saw a figure that they only need 4% of
current retirees to switch to the new plan to be able to go
forward with it, and that's such a low number that it seems
reasonable that they were not even close to meeting it with the
number that have opted out. And thus, a hasty retreat.
Tagging [member=18]oreally[/member] who wanted to know how this
was going.
#Post#: 79293--------------------------------------------------
Re: NYC Public Service Retirees and the fight against changing
their health insurance
DIR By: animaniactoo
Date: March 4, 2022, 6:03 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
And this just in - the City has already filed their appeal. It
was expected, nobody is concerned; but it does mean that the
battle is not over.
Retirees org that filed suit is advising to continue to opt out
if you wanted to opt and just hadn't filed yet, because it is
best for the message to come across strong and clear: We don't
care that you halted the plan, even when you unhalt it, we don't
want it or anything that looks like it. (and personally, I don't
trust them to botch notification of when it would go forward so
this is the only way to protect yourself from finding out that
you thought you were fine and they decided to go ahead on
04/15).
Pretty much, the only perceivable benefit that I could see -
after reviewing the full plan and not just the carefully
selected benefits that only look like benefits if you accept
that not having to pay a few minor fees is worth giving up the
ability for your doctors to order tests without having to get
pre-approval - is the OOP lifetime cap. Which is a big thing -
but probably not worth dealing with pre-approval hassles for an
MRI, etc.
#Post#: 79310--------------------------------------------------
Re: NYC Public Service Retirees and the fight against changing
their health insurance
DIR By: oreally
Date: March 4, 2022, 8:52 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Thanks. I posted my thanks in the main thread because I was on
my phone and couldn't find this. &#128513;
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