New York City workers and their families can now rest assured that they will have premium-free health care coverage for the next five years thanks to the new New York City Employees PPO health plan.

That’s a remarkable accomplishment on its own, given that New York City is one of few American cities with a workforce that pays no premium for health benefits. It’s even more notable at a time when health care premiums are soaring and copays are rising nationwide. An estimated 5 million Americans may lose their health insurance in the next two years, yet we have managed not only to protect our members’ health benefits but to strengthen them.

Our city and our union should not be the exception. Access to quality, affordable health care should be a right of all workers. The skyrocketing cost of health care in this country is a national crisis that demands the attention of elected officials at every level of government. In the meantime, we will continue to use our collective power as UFT members — and our ability to work together — to safeguard what we have and keep making improvements, which we did with this new plan.

The NYCE PPO plan replaces the GHI CBP plan for 750,000 in-service members, pre-Medicare retirees and their dependents starting on Jan. 1, 2026. By leveraging the enormous bargaining power of all city unions united, we secured high-quality, stable care at an affordable price for our members and their families. The new plan provides access to significantly more doctors and mental health providers and reduces the number of procedures requiring prior authorization. As we discussed the plan with chapter leaders this fall, we often heard, “What’s the catch?” Our honest answer: “There isn’t one.”

I’m proud that the UFT led the charge at the bargaining table and even prouder that we modeled participatory unionism at its best in the process leading up to the Municipal Labor Committee’s final vote on the new plan on Sept. 30.

From the beginning, we committed to democracy and transparency. Following a resolution passed by the UFT Delegate Assembly last December, we established the rank-and-file UFT Health Care Committee and pledged to bring all major health care changes before the Delegate Assembly for a vote.

Health care plan contracts are usually negotiated behind closed doors between employers and insurance companies. But, as educators often do, we changed the usual way of doing things. The 50-member UFT Health Care Committee — representing voices from every corner of the union — participated at every step of the process.

After the final proposed plan was approved by the committee, we created extensive informational materials, including a detailed FAQ, that the other municipal unions used to educate their members. In September, committee and negotiating team members visited schools to explain the plan at chapter meetings and brought questions back to the insurance companies for answers.

As teacher and UFT Health Care Committee member Holly Fleischer said at the special Delegate Assembly called on Sept. 29 to vote on the plan, it was the most transparent and democratic process our union has ever engaged in around health care. That’s an accomplishment worth celebrating.

As the NYCE PPO plan takes effect this January, we should reflect not only on what we achieved but also on how we achieved it. Driven by our members, we designed a new city health plan that meets their needs. The deep involvement of the committee and UFT delegates made the process more complex — but it also made the result more powerful.