HEALTH PLAN

ISSUE:
Our SAG-AFTRA Health Plan situation is dire. The mismanagement by current leadership and the trustees operating in bad faith resulted in over 11,750 participants (plus their dependents) losing coverage.

WHY IS THIS AN ISSUE?
Members who used to qualify for health coverage under the previous tiered program no longer do. Seniors were kicked off the plan with no warning although they were assured they would have SAG-AFTRA insurance “for life”. They believed that promise. What is a union for, if not to keep its promises to its vulnerable members?

HEALTH INSURANCE FAIL RECAP:

• In July 2020, current SAG-AFTRA leaders spent over $145,000 of your dues money to send you 4 rounds of postcards extolling the virtues of the new TV/Theatrical Contract and urging you to vote yes. Included in the “wins” was this statement: “UP TO 54 Million in Health Insurance Contributions” - thus making a false assurance that the plan was stable.

HERE IS THE TRUTH: The looming, disastrous underfunding of the Health Plan was kept secret from Negotiating Committees, The National Board – and YOU, The Members. THEY ACTUALLY ENCOURAGED MEMBERS TO VOTE FOR A CONTRACT THAT WOULD FURTHER WEAKEN OUR HEALTH PLAN.

• Certain SAG-AFTRA Executive STAFF serve as Trustees of the Health Plan.

• Two were intimately involved in three major contract negotiations: The 2019 Commercial, 2019 Netflix and 2020 TV/Theatrical contracts.

• Certain members who are also Trustees sat on these same Negotiating Committees and also on the National Board.

• The Health Plan Trustees knew the Plan was in dire need of new/extra funding while negotiating these major contracts.

• Neither Union Staff Trustees nor Union Member Trustees – told anyone on the Committees or National Board that the Health Plan was in serious trouble so that our members could take preventative action, including changing our negotiating strategy, proposals and priorities.

• By being kept in the dark, you were never given the opportunity to choose where the union should focus the contract negotiations in order to save the health plan.

TRUTH: In the first SAG-AFTRA-hosted webinars following the announced changes to the health plan, Trustees and former SAG Presidents Richard Masur and Barry Gordon openly admitted that the newly merged health plan was clearly underfunded and these changes were in the works for two years prior.

Now those same people, the current administration and the health plan itself - assert that the decision to eliminate certain members’ health plans was made ON JULY 31, 2020.

TRUTH: How did you get an expensive, data-laden, heavily-researched, thick booklet detailing those changes – 2 WEEKS LATER?

TRUTH: Members were subsequently told that the changes are “due to the pandemic”. THIS IS NOT TRUE.

• It is unacceptable that the Trustees of the Health Plan, who are bound fiduciaries, did not share crucial information about the state of our benefit plans which are funded directly by contract negotiations.

• They knew this information FOR TWO YEARS.

• Their failure to disseminate information resulted in our members and our negotiating committees operating in the blind and making a BAD DEAL for members.

TRUTH: Members were told to VOTE YES on the 2019 Commercial and 2020 TV/Theatrical Contracts, while they were kept oblivious to the fact that the contracts they were voting on would not sustain the Health Plan in its current form.

• On August 12, 2020, brutal cuts to our SAG-AFTRA Health Plan were announced. They included:

1. 8,200 Seniors lost their UNION Health Insurance.

• SAG Members had planned their retirements around this benefit.

• It was a benefit that was only achieved by earning 20 or more “retiree health credits”. Those health credits were based on pension years – not easily earned.

2. Several Plan tiers were entirely eliminated - kicking approximately 3,550 more Union Members off the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan.

• Age and Service (Over 40yrs. old w/10 Pension Credits) - $13,000 to qualify. Eliminated.

• Plan 2 - $18,020 to qualify. Eliminated.

• Earning threshold to qualify for ANY health coverage was raised to $25,950.

3. Members over 65 taking their pensions will NOT have their residuals count as earnings to qualify for the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan even though

• Those same residuals require employer contributions made to the Plan – just like sessions.

• Senior SAG-AFTRA Members’ DUES will be based on income that include those residuals.

• Members will pay taxes on those residuals. This is age-discrimination per federal law. (Sec.1557 “The SAG-AFTRA Health Plan does not exclude people or treat them differently because of race, color, national origin, age, disability or sex”.) This is unconscionable.

4. As a result of decisions made by the current leadership, it is unlikely that any Commercial Performer over 65, earning scale, will qualify for SAG-AFTRA Health Insurance again.

• 90% of all commercial earnings come from RESIDUALS.

• A scale, on-camera performer over 65 will now have to do 37 (THIRTY-SEVEN) Commercial Days to earn the $25,950 IN-SESSION to qualify.

• The Trustees failed every commercial performer over 65.

TRUTH: The SAG-AFTRA National Board APPOINTS Health Plan Trustees.

• While the Health Plan and the Union are separate legal entities, they are inextricably connected. The Plan and our Union are structurally bound together, in terms of how it is managed and how it is funded.

• All monies going into the Plan come from contributions negotiated by SAG-AFTRA. The Plan is profoundly affected by how well contracts are negotiated.

• Thus, any claims that SAG-AFTRA has NO POWER OVER, or INVOLVEMENT WITH, the Health Plan are untrue.

TRUTH: THE EMPLOYER CONTRIBUTION “CAPS” HAVE NOT BEEN RAISED SINCE 1982

• Our Health & Pension Plans are funded from employer contributions, paid as a percentage on top of our wages, currently 20% on tv/theatrical and 18.5% on commercial work.

• But those contributions are capped per project type and per employer.

• The Employer's contribution “caps” are:

  o $15,000 for half hour TV shows.

  o $24,500 for one hour TV shows.

• This means that Employers only make contributions to the health plan UP to that cap amount.

• If a member is fortunate enough to earn $100,000 per episode, Employers still pay only an amount based on $15,000 for half hour, $24,500 for one-hour series.

This is the SAME amount they’ve paid for 39 (THIRTY-NINE) years. It translates to millions of dollars lost to the Health Plan. And our Members clearly lose as well, by not having contributions made in their names for earnings over these ridiculously low, outdated caps.

TRUTH: The Employer contribution Caps must be raised. #RaiseTheCaps! Adjusted for inflation from the 1982 levels, they should be: $41,000 for Half Hour, $67,000 for One Hour, $636,000 for Features (currently $232,000), and $617,000 per employer, (currently $225,000).

TRUTH: VIA BENEFITS – A FOR-PROFIT Healthcare Plan Search Dashboard - is promoted to members instead of NON-PROFIT, Union-Friendly, Sister Organization options such as The Actor’s Fund (TAF) and Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF).

• Our sister organizations, the Actors Fund and the Motion Picture Television Fund, have a program for helping members called Entertainment Health Insurance Solutions.

• Unfortunately, the current SAG-AFTRA Administration had the SAG-AFTRA Health Plan commit to a contract with a for-profit broker called Via Benefits.

• The SAG-AFTRA Health Plan heavily promoted this arrangement, coercing members into believing they were REQUIRED to use Via Benefits to get and use a Health Reimbursement Account (HRA) (For qualified members, Funds up to $1,140 per years to reimburse health expenses).

• This is NOT TRUE. Our services (The Actor’s Fund and MPTF) also give members access to HRAs. This option has been marginalized by the Health Plan and SAG- AFTRA’s brazen marketing of Via Benefits.

TRUTH: Members did not need to use Via Benefits.

• The Health Plan could have set up a member’s HRA through a general Third Party Administrator and used TAF and MPTF, further enhancing our Funds’ services who have a vested interest in our members.

• Via Benefits had mixed reviews as our Staff has attempted to manage the confusion engendered by the plan’s approach and botched roll-out of their preferred service.

TRUTH: In 2016 SAG-AFTRA Members were assured by SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris and Executive Director David White that our Health Plan was safe and secure. We were all misled from the very start. Gabrielle Carteris is quoted as saying, “We have positioned our health plan to be financially sustainable for all members for years to come.” David White said, “The trustees worked together to arrive at solutions that strengthen the overall financial health of the plan while ensuring comprehensive benefits for all participants.”

https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/sag-aftra-health-care-merge-1201791269/.

These statements... along with many others... have been proven false.

THE TRUTH IS: When Members were scared, uninsured – in the MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC - CURRENT UFS/USAN NATIONAL LEADERSHIP ABANDONED THE MEMBERS and defended the deplorable changes to the health plan.

It was MembershipFirst that immediately stood up against those changes.

• Instead of fighting back, current Union Administration went so far as to make a video falsely claiming that “no one has lost their health care” and “no one was ever promised senior secondary health care”

• MEMBERSHIPFIRST hosted open-forum Town Halls, attended by hundreds who shared their fears, were listened to and had ALL QUESTIONS ANSWERED TRUTHFULLY, instead of the continued evasiveness and outright gaslighting by current leaders.

WHAT IS OUR SOLUTION?
The SAG-AFTRA National Board must appoint new Trustees to the Health Plan.

• New Trustees of the Health Plan must honestly share with future Negotiating Committees the state of both the Pension and Health Plans, to better inform Negotiating Committees and Members as to what funding is necessary to insure stability.

• Trustees of the plan must meet criteria that demonstrates that they have the expertise to manage a health plan, the fortitude to stand up to Employer pressure and the character to remain truthful and transparent in their work.

• EMPLOYER CAPS MUST BE RAISED.

• THE CURRENT “LEADERSHIP” HAS BEEN IN POWER FOR 12 LONG YEARS

• MEMBERSHIPFIRST WILL WORK TO STRENGTHEN THE SAG-AFTRA HEALTH

  PLAN AND RETURN IT TO THE GOLD STANDARD OF COVERAGE IN THE INDUSTRY.

  For more information, please follow MembershipFirst response at SOSHealthPlan.com