A special Newsline update.
Ukraine still lives.
Visitation is on Wednesday, March 29, 4pm-8pm at the Beecher Funeral Home 1 Putnam Avenue, Brewster NY 10509
The Funeral Mass will be on Thursday, March 30th at 10am at St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church, 3003 30th Street, Astoria NY 11102
Mike Daflos spent forty years as a loyal OSA member, activist and officer. He, Mike Falzarano and John Harper organized 600 analysts at the Department of Education between 2013 and 2016. Mike was OSA’s Vice-Chairperson from 2018 through 2022.
He will be missed by his friends at HRA, the Transit Authority and, of course, his union.
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With sadness, we want to inform everyone of the passing of Michael Daflos on March 27, 2023. His family has made the arrangements and the funeral information is below:
Ukraine still lives.
Our general membership meeting is this Thursday, March 30th. It will be a Zoom meeting. If you have not received your link via email, please call the office and ask for Megan or email her at mwofsy@osaunion.org. If you cannot attend by computer but can in person, call Megan for details.
We have been getting questions sent to us in advance and will seek to answer individual questions before the meeting.
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Ukraine still lives.
Most of our Welfare Fund staff will be attending a seminar on the new Medicare Advantage Plan today. We may not be enthusiastic about the change to AETNA, but we will need to learn the details.
The new plan will affect about 2000 of our OSA retirees and their spouses.
We also expect that the March mailing should be coming out this week. It is already on this website as the March 2023 OSA Newsletter.
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Ukraine still lives.
The Municipal Labor Committee accepted the AETNA Medicare Advantage program this past Thursday.
The plan was quite unpopular with the unions as was shown by the many unions abstaining from voting or choosing not to attend the meeting at all. Even so, it passed because there seems to be no alternative since the City is determined to gain the $600 million yearly subsidy from Congress that comes with the plan.
Our organization abstained, along with the Doctors Council, the New York State Nurses Association and many others.
Details of the transition to the new plan will be on the website in the weeks to come. but for now our union is gathering the information.
In the meantime, we are posting a range of new documents. The first is a document prepared by Aetna containing answers to questions raised by unions at the March 2nd MLC meeting. The second is the presentation made by Aetna to the MLC on March 2nd. The third is a letter from the City's Office of Labor Relations to retirees, introducing the new plan. The fourth is the Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan's Evidence of Coverage document. Below that is the Aetna Silver Script Drug Rider Evidence of Coverage Document and below that, the Silver Script Formulary. Next is a Summary of the Silver Script Rider Benefit. The final document is a list of online webinars being hosted by Aetna to introduce the new plan. Most of these documents can also be found on the plan website at:
Aetna City of NY Medicare Advantage PPO Plan Website
Questions and Answers About The Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan
Aetna Presentation About Their Medicare Advantage Plan
Letter From the City's Office of Labor Relations to Retirees
Aetna Medicare Advantage Plan Evidence of Coverage
Comparison of GHI Senior Care, HIP VIP and Aetna Plans
Drug Rider Evidence of Coverage - Silver Script
Drug Rider Formulary On Silver Script
Summary of the Aetna Silver Script Drug Rider
Comparison of GHI Senior Care, HIP VIP and Aetna Plan Drug Riders
Aetna Webinars Introducing The New Plan
To sign up for an Aetna webinar, go to this link:Aetna Webinar Sign-Up Page
To sign up for an In-Person Aetna Introductory meeting on the plan go to this link: Aetna In Person Plan Seminar Registration Page
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Ukraine still lives.
Two news items this week. On Monday, our Transit Authority Chapter met and reversed their decision to go to impasse over contract negotiations.
Our TA Chapter had previously carefully considered the City pattern for the prior period versus the Transportation Workers Union pattern for three years. By a vote of 26 to 5 our members had voted to seek the TWU pattern as being better overall.
The Authority would not give our members the TWU pattern, so we chose to fight to get that pattern, even if it delayed settlement and payment of overdue raises.
However, the recent City pattern for the current period, 3% and 3% etc., led our Transit Chapter to reconsider. The Chapter voted, last Monday, by 33 to 2, to accept the prior City pattern since it will speed matters up.
I wish to compliment our brothers and sisters at the Transit Authority for being willing to fight for more, but also for being flexible enough to reverse direction when new information was received.
The second item is the release of the outline for the proposed Aetna Medicare Advantage program. This plan is meant to replace GHI Senior Care. The information is available at the following links:
Summary of Proposed Aetna Medicare Advantage Agreement
Comparison of GHI Senior Care and Aetna MAP Plan
Comparison of GHI Senior Care and Aetna MAP Plan Drug Riders
The Municipal Labor Committee will vote this Thursday on the proposal
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