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CWA, Buffalo Area Unions Create Healthy Alternative
"We realized that we were paying more and more for less and less coverage.”
That thought propelled creation of LaborHealth, an HMO and preferred provider network with the union label aimed at 250,000 union members throughout Western New York, according to Debora Hayes, president of Nurses United /CWA Local 1168.
Hayes, one of the designers of the union health plan, said several hundred labor unions in the Buffalo area have already indicated an interest in the plan, which opened administrative offices in Cheektowaga, N.Y., and opened its enrollment period on March 1.
Hayes says the basic idea behind LaborHealth is to harness unions’ buying power to fight rising health care costs.
“We hope that by controlling costs and providing a union service at the same time, we can win bigger wage increases at the bargaining table,” Hayes explains.
LaborHealth is governed by a 19-member board of union officials and will be administered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Western New York. More than 2,400 doctors have agreed to participate in the preferred provider network. LaborHealth care options include unionized hospitals and health care providers.
LaborHealth officials hope to sign up 50,000 enrollees the first year — and they got a boost on March 8 when Erie County’s 8,000 workers represented by the Civil Service Employees Association and the Teamsters union agreed to add LaborHealth as an option to its menu.
LaborHealth will enable participants to “enjoy coverage levels substantially above current offerings, resembling benefits of five to seven years ago, at a cost otherwise unavailable in the marketplace,” according to John M. Orlando, president of Local 2095 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who — like Hayes — serves as a member of the board of trustees of LaborHealth.
Other trustees of the plan come from the United Auto Workers, the Teamsters and the Council of Utility Contractors Inc.
That thought propelled creation of LaborHealth, an HMO and preferred provider network with the union label aimed at 250,000 union members throughout Western New York, according to Debora Hayes, president of Nurses United /CWA Local 1168.
Hayes, one of the designers of the union health plan, said several hundred labor unions in the Buffalo area have already indicated an interest in the plan, which opened administrative offices in Cheektowaga, N.Y., and opened its enrollment period on March 1.
Hayes says the basic idea behind LaborHealth is to harness unions’ buying power to fight rising health care costs.
“We hope that by controlling costs and providing a union service at the same time, we can win bigger wage increases at the bargaining table,” Hayes explains.
LaborHealth is governed by a 19-member board of union officials and will be administered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Western New York. More than 2,400 doctors have agreed to participate in the preferred provider network. LaborHealth care options include unionized hospitals and health care providers.
LaborHealth officials hope to sign up 50,000 enrollees the first year — and they got a boost on March 8 when Erie County’s 8,000 workers represented by the Civil Service Employees Association and the Teamsters union agreed to add LaborHealth as an option to its menu.
LaborHealth will enable participants to “enjoy coverage levels substantially above current offerings, resembling benefits of five to seven years ago, at a cost otherwise unavailable in the marketplace,” according to John M. Orlando, president of Local 2095 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, who — like Hayes — serves as a member of the board of trustees of LaborHealth.
Other trustees of the plan come from the United Auto Workers, the Teamsters and the Council of Utility Contractors Inc.