One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements.
The fund is administered by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Union officials said the state compelled the fund to start buying coverage from a third party, which increased premiums by 60%. State health officials denied forcing the union fund to make the switch, saying the fund had been struggling financially even before the switch to third-party coverage.
The fund informed its members late last month that their dependents will no longer be covered as of Jan. 1, 2011. Currently about 6,000 children are covered by the benefit fund, some until age 23.
The union fund faced a “dramatic shortfall” between what employers contributed to the fund and the premiums charged by its insurance provider, Fidelis Care, according to Mitra Behroozi, executive director of benefit and pension funds for 1199SEIU. The union fund pools contributions from several home-care agencies and then buys insurance from Fidelis.
“In addition, new federal health-care reform legislation requires plans with dependent coverage to expand that coverage up to age 26,” Behroozi wrote in a letter to members Oct. 22. “Our limited resources are already stretched as far as possible, and meeting this new requirement would be financially impossible.”
Clearly, a bailout is in order.
Or maybe the government can just step in and take ownership of the union, placing employees under the government health plan.
May as well just cut out the middleman, right? And hey, it’s not like anyone need actually pay for any of this. At least, not now. And not them.
Win win!
But, but, Obama said we’d be able to keep our coverage if we liked it.
I’m beginning to think that he isn’t a good man.
*shrug*
Sounds like the children of a bunch of Democrats are going to get sick and possibly die as a result of the policy their parents forced on the country.
Goose, gander. You know how that goes.
Will descriptive sentences regarding Obama still begin with “While I admire his intellect………”?
I have yet to see evidence of Obama’s vast intellect, or even his gift for oratory.
It’s in all the papers.
Well, that’s it, then. If it’s in the paper, it must be true.
That evidence comes from the same place as the evidence of Palin being a know-nothing, mush-mouthed, air-head. That is, from the conventional wisdom of the north-east political and press “elite”.
The left is deep, deep into the Fuhrerprinzip mindset. They do not put forward candidates for the presidency; they present the American people with gods. The Obamas — like the Clintons before them — are brilliant, beautiful, cultured — practically perfect, in every way. Evidence to the contrary is at best ignored — at worst, cast as the result of a dire conspiracy against not just their politician, but the entire country.
Currently about 6,000 children are covered by the benefit fund, some until age 23… “In addition, new federal health-care reform legislation requires plans with dependent coverage to expand that coverage up to age 26,”
From age 21 to 24, I had no health insurance. It wasn’t that bad, considering that there isn’t much at that age that can’t be cured with whiskey, and I was on that course of treatment already.
I was one of the few who really really needed insurance at age 24 (almost 25) and was still covered by my father’s plan. My bills ran into the low six figures. Still, most of the time one does not need it at that age.
I think I had it through my father.
Oh, silly, it’s not a bailout! It’s a … a … oh, you know, one of those things that mean a law doesn’t say what it says if Kathleen Sebelius says it doesn’t. Like McDonalds got. And the Teachers’ union. One of those things, silly. A waiver! Yeah, that’s the ticket. A waiver.
Guy!!
OK, I know it’s really crass and juvenile to make an issue of someone’s name, like that comedian in one cycle of Hill Street Blues: Vic Hitler.
Still: Mitra Behroozi? The Top Gun for the SEIU insurance is Mitra Behroozi?
Did somebody lose a bet?