Health care negotiations FAQ

We have prepared the following FAQ to answer members' most commonly asked questions about the city health care negotiations that are underway.

Key Terms

Municipal Labor Committee (MLC): The MLC is a group that represents the municipal labor unions across New York City. With input from these unions, including the UFT, the MLC negotiates the health care plans for all city workers.

Negotiated Acquisition (NA): A negotiated acquisition is like a Request for Proposals (RFP – a formal process that the city uses to select a vendor or contractor) but less rigid. It allows the city and the MLC to repeatedly go back to a bidder and tell them to do better.

Preferred Provider Organization Plan (PPO): A PPO plan is type of health insurance plan that allows you to see any doctor or specialist you want, without requiring a referral. It offers greater flexibility to choose a doctor that is out of network.

Premium-Free Health Care: New York City municipal workers do not have to pay a monthly fee (or a premium) for our health care because the city pays that for us. This is part of the compensation package that the MLC negotiated for us.

Health Care Committee: A group of 50 or so UFT members who meet to discuss health care-related issues and will review the negotiated health care plan before it goes to the Delegate Assembly for a vote.

Delegate Assembly: The highest governing body in the UFT made up of chapter leaders and delegates from all schools in the city who meet monthly to discuss education-related issues and vote to pass resolutions guiding our work as a union.

What’s happening with city workers’ health care?

Members have been reporting more and more issues with the city’s current most popular health care plan (GHI-CBP) as copays continue to rise and more doctors leave the network. At the same time, health care costs have nearly doubled since 2015 (from $16,000 to $31,000 for a family plan), putting our premium-free coverage at risk. We need to save our premium-free health care while addressing the issues with our current plan.

So what are we doing about it?

Every year, our premium-free health care is negotiated through the Municipal Labor Committee (MLC), but for the past 40 years those negotiations have taken place with the same providers (EmblemHealth and Anthem). Two years ago, the city and the MLC made the decision to shop around for something better. This process is called a negotiated acquisition and basically tells all interested companies: We are looking for something better than what we have, and here is what we are looking for — so give us your best offer.

This negotiated acquisition process presents an opportunity to improve our benefits, rein in costs and ensure our health care remains premium-free.

What plan are these negotiations for?

These negotiations are for the GHI-CBP PPO health plan for all New York City in-service workers and pre-Medicare city retirees. These negotiations do not affect any other city health plan (e.g., the current HIP plan or the Medicare-eligible retiree health plans) and do not include the benefits that UFT members get from the UFT Welfare Fund, which are dental, vision, prescription drug (for in-service members) and hearing aid benefits.

What health care plan improvements did the MLC ask for in the negotiated acquisition process?

The main goals the MLC put forth in the negotiated acquisition process were:

More in-network doctors, both locally and nationwide (with continued access to our current providers).
A premium-free health care guarantee.
Better access to behavioral/mental health care.
Protection from rising copays.

Are my health benefits at risk?

Absolutely not. The goal of this process is to emerge with an even stronger health benefits package while locking in our guarantee of premium-free health care for at least the next five years, instead of our current one-year contracts.

Will reining in costs to keep our premium-free care mean our new plan will offer diminished benefits?

Reducing city costs helps keep our premium-free health care safe. The purpose of our engaging in this process is to keep our health care premium-free while improving our plan as a whole.

So how can city health care costs be reduced without diminishing our benefits?

It’s simple: We leverage our buying power. The MLC represents 750,000 city workers, pre-Medicare city retirees and their dependents enrolled in the GHI-CBP plan. Getting our business is a win for any insurer. So health insurance companies compete for us as customers and come to the table with reduced prices and an enhanced plan that they wouldn’t offer to smaller groups.

The city has not done a full negotiated acquisition process in over 40 years, and a lot has changed in the health care world in that time, both in terms of expenses but also in terms of opportunities for efficiencies that we aren’t benefiting from.

For example, imagine one person calls their cable company and asks for a lower rate. The company will say no. Now imagine 750,000 people band together and demand that their cable company lower its rate and say they are all taking their business elsewhere if the company doesn't respond. The company is likely to listen to the large number of people since they don’t want to lose their business.

What happens if we do nothing?

Doing nothing risks our access to premium-free health care. Our plan may be premium-free for us, but that’s only because the city pays our health care premiums for us. This is part of the compensation package that the MLC negotiated for us. If costs continue to rise at the same rate they’ve been rising over the past 10 years, the city will try to shift the cost of those rising premiums onto us.

So, what happens next?

Negotiations are ongoing. Once the proposed plan includes everything that the MLC believes it needs, each union in the MLC has the chance to review the final proposed plan and vote whether or not to support it.

Our UFT process is as follows: The plan is presented to our health care committee made up of UFT members to review. This committee will make a recommendation to our Delegate Assembly, which would then vote to decide if the UFT, as part of the MLC, approves the plan. If the MLC votes to approve the plan, this new enhanced health plan will be rolled out. See the details of this timeline »

What about other health plan options? Will they still exist?

Yes. All other city plans, including the current HIP plan, will not change. The Medicare-eligible retiree health plans will also not change and are not being negotiated at this time.

Learn more about the in-service health care negotiation process »