April 17, 2014
By Steve Wishnia
LaborPress will hold its second union health-care summit April 23 from 8am – 11am, discussing “The Future of Union Health Care: Taft-Hartley, the ACA, and New York Health.” Now that the Affordable Care Act has gone into effect, what does that mean for union health care? Provisions in the law threaten Taft-Hartley plans. The “Cadillac tax” on high-quality plans and the “belly button tax” charged for every plan member disproportionately affect union health plans, which are ineligible for the $965 billion in subsidies that commercial insurance plans will be getting.
Join other union leaders and policy experts in discussing these challenges and how to move forward to long-term solutions, including Assembly Health Committee chair Richard Gottfried's New York Health bill (A05389/S02078), which would set up a Medicare-style single-payer system in New York State.
Gene Carroll, co-director of the New York State AFL-CIO/Cornell Union Leadership Institute, will chair the meeting beginning at 9am.
At 10 am., there will be an open discussion of what we have in common and what next steps we want to take.
The program participants will include:
• Assemblymember Gottfried;
• Gemma De Leon, executive vice president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Workers union and vice president of the Association of Benefit Administrators; and
• James McGee, executive director of the Transit Employees Health & Welfare Fund, which provides benefits to workers in the Metro system in Washington, D.C.; and
The event will run from 8–11 am at the RWDSU offices, 30 East 29th St., in the 5th-floor conference room. Registration is free for union fund administrators, political directors, and leaders, but pre-registration is required.
For more information, contact: Tam Phan, (347) 695-6589, tam@laborpress.org; Stephanie West, (646) 529-8435, Stephanie@laborpress.org; or Neal Tepel, (646) 591-6484, neal@laborpress.org.
