Medicare Advantage and the Delegates Assembly

As a writer and teacher, I always felt like we should be willing to throw away our best laid plans if a better plan emerges We must be willing to reconsider our thoughts, our framing and our positions

Mike Sill is a High School ELA teacher and serves as UFT Assistant Secretary

When I was an ELA teacher at Automotive High School, I used to share the old English teacher saw with my students—“I’m not a good writer, but I’m a pretty good rewriter.” Your first draft is rarely your best draft. Stepping away from your work and coming back to look at it with fresh eyes, is always advisable. Even better if a group of critical friends can tear it up for you. As a writer and as a teacher, I always felt like we should be willing to throw away our best laid plans if a better plan emerges. We must be willing to reconsider our thoughts, our framing and our positions.

This principle was on full display at the Delegate Assembly in December. A few weeks prior to the DA, the Retired Teachers’ Chapter had passed a resolution calling on the UFT to bring any significant changes to member healthcare to the DA for a vote, before they could be supported at the MLC or enacted by the UFT. That resolution was brought to the DA by RTC Chairperson Bennett Fischer. It came to the floor at the December DA and Bennett did an excellent job of motivating the resolution.

UFT Secretary LeRoy Barr and I both rose to speak. I heard someone in the audience say, “Well, it’s dead now, they’re both going to speak against it.” That is not what happened.

LeRoy and I both offered amendments that I believe were in the spirit of the resolution, and I hope, will serve to make the resolution even stronger. LeRoy’s amendment was, “Be it resolved that the UFT will never force retirees into a Medicare Advantage program.” The sizable retiree contingent present at the DA gasped audibly at that. That had not been in our first draft.

My amendment was twofold—we must fight against the possibility of federal legislation that would diminish our health benefits (because those changes would not come before the DA), and we should have a permanent UFT Task Force on Health Benefits, made up of members of different caucuses, both in-service and retired. The purpose of that task force would be to act as the vanguard on health issues—be the most informed, most prepared members regarding healthcare, and to have vigorous debate before settling on recommendations that the Task Force can bring to the Delegate Assembly, for the aforementioned vote.

Both amendments and the amended resolution passed with flying colors. This represents quite a change in UFT practice. While any member of the DA can bring a resolution to the floor of the DA really about any topic, there hasn’t previously been a mandate that issues of a given topic, other than political endorsements and contract ratification, must be brought before the DA. It is a welcome change.

But why now?

That answer is simple—we listened to the retirees on the issue of Medicare Advantage. I had the opportunity to sit with Bennett briefly after the DA, and we kind of reviewed how we had arrived at this moment. I said to him, “Look around. We are on an island. UFT members, both retired and in-service are in a shrinking class of workers that still have premium-free, high quality healthcare.” Bennett shared his perspective that the UFT had erred when we, in his opinion, made it seem like, if retirees didn’t join Medicare Advantage, that in-service members would be forced into premiums.

But in the context of our position as an island surrounded by an ocean of workers paying premiums, we cannot pretend like there is no pressure to make changes. In my opinion our error was in pursuing Medicare Advantage at all.

Let me be clear—we saw a path forward where we could, because of our negotiation position and the number of members we represent, ease some of the pressure on our premium-free care and provide more, higher quality benefits for our retirees. The problem? We abandoned one of our foundational principles. That principle is our belief in a robust government safety net, obviously including Medicare, and the belief that such government programs are preferable to corporate alternatives. Now—there may be times when an alternative to a principle like that may present itself as preferable, but never, never when the members are not in favor of the change. There were certainly loud voices over the last couple of years saying we should not pursue Medicare Advantage, but in the era of social media and endless debate, it can be difficult to quantify how many members are on either side of an issue. The retiree election certainly quantified it for us.

The members weren’t with the plan. So, we listened and we abandoned it right away. As LeRoy’s amendment said, “The UFT will never force a UFT retiree into a Medicare Advantage plan.” That issue is over.

But the fight continues, and the fight cannot be internal with each other. Like siblings who fight in the house, but stand together in the street, we need to take on this incoming administration and all of the enemies of the social safety net, wherever they may be.

I am grateful that when we engage in that fight, the moves that we make will be informed by the voting members of the UFT’s highest decision-making authority, the Delegate Assembly. Our first draft was flawed. This one is much better.