The 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East is the largest Local union in the world with approximately 300,000 members. It is also runs one of the biggest health insurance plans in the country. Last week the union dropped coverage of Kids from their plan
blaming the decision on the Obamacare law that they helped push through.
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....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.
Apparently said the union that the requirement that health plans cover dependents (children) up until age 26 cost too much:
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.”
The union must have gotten a nasty letter from the President because today they said their first statement was a lie:
“The 1199 SEIU Home Care Employees Benefit Fund did not drop dependent coverage because of the new federal healthcare reform law. We applaud the new law's commitment to extend coverage to millions of working Americans who are currently uninsured.
Our Fund was compelled to discontinue coverage for dependent children solely because insurance costs continued to rise, but state funding for these vulnerable, low-wage workers did not. Instead, state Medicaid funding to the home health services sector has been cut 9 separate times in just the last 3 years.
Most homecare workers often make less than $15,000 per year caring for the elderly, infirm and disabled and we worked to preserve coverage for their dependent children for as long as we possibly could.
Because most dependent children the Fund covered are eligible for New York State's Child Health Plus program (CHP), in order to protect the coverage of our working members, they are transitioning to a member-only plan for now. We are also assisting impacted member families in enrolling their children into CHP to avoid any gaps in coverage.
Which is it guys??? Was your first statement nonsense? Or did you get a White House rebuke which forced you to change your story? My Vote is on the latter.
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